Prediction of fatigue life of fiber glass reinforced composite (FGRC)‎ using artificial neural Network

Abstract EN

The present work studies the mechanical properties of composite materials, experimentally and analytically, that are fabricated by stacking 4-layers of fiberglass reinforced with polyester resin.

This plies are tested under dynamic load (fatigue test) in fully reversible tension-compression (R=-1) to estimate the fatigue life of the composite where fatigue performance of fiberglass reinforced composed is an increasingly important consideration especially when designing wind turbine blades.

In order to predict fatigue life (Number of cycles to failure), conventional analytical techniques are used in the present work.

In addition, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a reliable and accurate technique that is used for predicting fatigue life.

The used networks are; Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN), Generalized Regression Neural Network (GRNN) and Radial Bases Function Neural Network (RBFNN).

Based on the comparison of the results, it is found that the ANN techniques are better than conventional methods for prediction.

The results shows that (RBNN2), where stress load and angle of orientation are input to the network and number of cycles to failure as output, is an efficient tool for prediction and optimization the fatigue life of fiberglass reinforced composite.