Composites Science and Technology 62 (2002) 1479
www.elsevier.com/locate/compscitech
Guest editorial
World wide failure exercise on failure prediction in composites
Composite materials have seen an increasing applica-
tion in numerous industries over the past few decades.
Within the aerospace industry, the new generations of
aircraft will be heavily reliant on composite materials,
not just as a replacement for metallic materials but also
as a means of delivering more advanced design features.
Other fields of application such as ground transporta-
tion, general mechanical engineering, civil engineering,
and chemical engineering are focussing increasingly
towards composites, because of their superior proper-
ties. This increase in application means that reliability
and durability are more and more important, and the
designers have to take this into account. Thanks to the
pioneering work of Timoschenko, Hashin, Tsai and
Puck (to mention only a few), tools were developed to
design safe composite structures. However, it turned out
that these early design tools could be further improved.
One of the major considerations in design is the possi-
bility of failure. In metallic materials, we can expect
a single crack to initiate final failure. In composite
materials, however, we have numerous types of failure,
such as fibre rupture, interfibre matrix cracking,
delamination, etc. In addition, the variation in fibre
orientation has to be taken into account. A further
improvement of the existing failure criteria is therefore
evidently needed.
In 1992, the Guest Editors of this special issue (Prof.
M.J. Hinton, Mr. P.D. Soden and Dr. A.S. Kaddour)
embarked on a mission to determine the maturity of
currently available laminated composite failure
theories. They have organised and co-ordinated a
‘World Wide Failure Exercise’ (often referred to, in the
US, as the ‘Failure Olympics’) by engaging the active
and positive participation of the leading theoreticians
in the field, worldwide, and by promoting the exercise
at a variety of major conferences. One such example
of the latter was an extremely lively open discussion
held at the 11th International Conference on Composite
Materials, at the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, in
1997.
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The exercise was originally planned to take place in
two parts, designated as Part A and Part B. Throughout
the exercise, the Guest Editors have choreographed a
complex sequence of events to ensure that a compre-
hensive description of each theory has been provided
and that a thorough and objective assessment of the
performance of each theory has been carried out. This
has proved to be a mammoth task!
Composites Science and Technology was chosen as the
forum for publishing the fruits of the exercise, with Part
A completed in a special issue (Vol. 58, No. 7, 1998),
and Part B being the subject of this publication. Taken
together, Parts A and B provide a unique insight into
the current status of theories for predicting the failure
response of fibre reinforced polymer laminates.
The methodology adopted for the exercise, to ensure
that objectivity and impartiality has been maintained
throughout, has led to a longer than anticipated time-
frame for completing Part B. I would like to thank the
Guest Editors for encouraging the discussion, putting
all the papers together and for driving the exercise to a
successful conclusion. I would also like to thank all of
the authors for their high level contributions, the accu-
racy of work and, more importantly, for their patience
in supporting this challenge over many years. I am
confident that the publication will prove to have been
well worth the wait!
As a final note, several newer theories have emerged
during the life of the exercise. In recognition of this
situation, the Guest Editors have dealt with new con-
tributions using the same process as applied in Parts A
and B. One further publication is planned to cover the
new theories and to provide the final closure to this 10 year
study.
Karl Schulte (European Editor)
Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg
Polymer Composites Section,
Denickestrasse. 15 21073 Hamburg, Germany
E-mail address: schulte@tuhh.de