Papers by Author: Taku Shimomura

Abstract: Polymer materials are used in the structural members such as aircraft, ship, automobiles in order to enlarge and lighten the machinery and structures. In such the machinery and structures, the complex destruction phenomena are generating by the deterioration of use conditions of the polymer materials. And the materials are placed under biaxial or multi-axial stress conditions rather than uni-axial stress conditions due to their complicated structures. To understand the basic deformation behaviours and the features in destruction process under multi-axial stress conditions is more important in the reliability and the accident prevention plan. To help overcome this problem, the authors have developed a hydraulic high-speed biaxial loading test device. In this study, we had comparative study for the values of the dimensionless stress intensity factors, F values by the photoelastic and caustics methods to clarify deformation behaviours and characteristics of polymer materials under biaxial stress conditions.

Abstract: In order to clarify the effect of anisotropy on local deformation and the stress intensity factors in the vicinity of the crack tip under complicated stress states, biaxial loading tests were carried out on isotropic (Photoelastic sheet: PSM-1, Measurements Group, Inc) and anisotropic (LEXAN 9030, General Electric Company) polycarbonate materials. The biaxial dynamic loading device, which was developed by the authors, was fully utilized in the experiments. We carried out the experiments using isotropic and anisotropic specimens with a pre-processed 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75° or 90° crack angle. We applied the equal biaxial stress, that is, the loads for both the Y- and X-axis as 0N : 0N-3920N : 3920N (1 : 1). We determined the stress intensity factors of specimens using both photoelasticity and caustics method. The results of the experiments were compared. As a result, when the materials with anisotropic property are used as machine or structural members, it is important to consider the extrusion direction of the material in their design.