Fatigue damage analysis of unidirectional metal matrix composites

The paper deals with the non-linear analysis of industrial components subjected to strong thermo-mechanical cyclic loads. Two kinds of damages must be taken into account: the first one being a "constitutive damage" which will dominate the low cycle fatigue (LCF) regime and whose evolution law will be coupled to the elasto-viscoplastic model. The second one will be a "classical" fatigue damage for the high cycle fatigue (HCF) regime whose phenomenological description is deduced from Onera's stress based models. Both damage models are applied to describe the specific behaviour of a unidirectional metal matrix composite strongly influenced by the material anisotropy. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.