Effect of surface micro-pits on mode-II fracture toughness of Ti-6Al-4V/PEEK interface

Abstract

Herein, the delamination issue of TiGr(TC4/PEEK/Cf) laminate is addressed by investigating the influence of TC4(Ti-6Al-4V) surface micro-pits on mode-II interfacial fracture toughness of TC4/PEEK interface through experimental and finite element modeling. The micro-pits unit cell, unit strip and the end notched flexure (ENF) models are established based on the finite element simulations and the effect of micro-pit size parameters is studied in detail. The results of micro-pits unit cell model reveal that the presence of micro-pits can effectively buffer the interfacial stress concentration under mode-II loading conditions. Furthermore, the micro-pits unit strip model, with different micro-pit sizes, is analyzed to obtain the interface parameters, which are converted and used in the ENF model. Both the unit strip and ENF models conclude that the presence of interfacial micro-pits effectively improves the mode-II fracture toughness. It is worth mentioning that the utilization of converted interface parameters in ENF model avoided the limitation of micro-pit size and reduced the workload. Finally, the experimental and computational ENF results exhibited excellent consistency and confirmed the reliability of the proposed finite element models. The current study provides useful guidelines for the design and manufacturing of high-performance TC4/PEEK interfaces for a wide range of applications.