Quantification of Aging from Long-term Exposure

Added: Oct 06, 2016 10:59 am Air Force Research Laboratory, AFRL/RXC, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Structural Materials is announcing to industry its intent to solicit proposals under this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). This research will utilize legacy carbon-fiber composite airframe components to establish the effects of in-service natural aging on the composite material properties and determine the importance of environmental aging as a critical parameter in the service life of the composite structure. In-service aging includes the influence and interaction of time, load, heat, ultraviolet light, oxidation, and other environmental conditions on material property loss. Furthermore, the envisioned research intends to develop progressive damage models to include the residual strength effects as observed from fleet in-service environmental history and/or account for spatially varying properties observed in a laboratory aging scenario or through simulation of the aging process.

The overall objectives in this initial effort is to address whether in-service aging influences composite material mechanical properties meaningfully through a sampling of fielded components and to enhance progressive failure analysis methods to include spatially varying property distributions attributed to environmental degradation regardless of the outcome of the in-service components sampled.