The numerical simulation of fatigue behavior of the Aluminum 7075-T6 cantilever beam with an angular crack has been investigated. Cracks are located separately in three different positions of the investigated beam. To predict the fatigue behavior of the cantilever beam the crack propagation was manually simulated. Compression load is applied in different stress ratios between zero and one; then, the obtained numerical results of this research are compared with the experimental results. It is observed that increasing the stress ratio increases the percentage of the fatigue life of the sample significantly. Ascending growth of fatigue life is slow and more severe by increasing of the stress ratio for the first and the third position, respectively. By increasing the stress ratio, the rate of deviation of the crack decreases and it converges to 0° in parallel to the width of the beam. This result is also observed with an increase in the distance from the support of beam. Furthermore, it is also revealed that by the increase in the initial length of the crack, the fatigue life initially reduces with smaller ratios. However, along the larger cracks, the decreasing ratio of fatigue life increases significantly.

When a satellite is in orbit, micro vibration generated by its actuators (such as reaction wheels, deployable mechanisms, etc.) will affect the imaging quality of the camera. Viscoelastic materials are utilized as passive isolators to reduce these micro vibrations due to their simple construction and excellent energy dissipation capacity, A finite element model of the entire satellite as well as the camera is constructed using the ABAQUS software and then four reaction wheels are included as the sources of micro-vibrations and their forces are added to the model. To isolate these vibrations, four square sorbothane pads are designed and added in the finite element model as viscoelastic dampers located under the camera, between the camera and satellite bus. The generalized Maxwell model is employed to describe the dynamic properties of the viscoelastic elements in the ABAQUS software. Finally, by analyzing and comparing the dynamic responses of the system with and without the viscoelastic sorbothane pads, it is realized that this isolation system can effectively reduce the reaction wheel micro-vibrations on the camera and subsequently increase the image quality.

Composite materials show different mechanical properties in different directions which leads to complications in the prediction of their behavior. In addition to being inhomogeneous, behavior of composite materials is highly dependent on the curing process and many studies have tried to address these issues. Residual stress can induce high errors in prediction of composite material properties and leads to a difference between theoretical and experimental results. It has been observed that the humidity of environment and the chemical properties of composite materials are also important. Fewer studies have addressed thick layer composites and no damage theory has been developed for these materials. In this paper residual stress in thick layer composites have been studied. Using numerical analysis, the curing process has been modeled and mechanical properties of a thick layer composite are obtained and the induced residual stress in these composites has been assessed. Unlike thin layer composites, the stress in each layer is not specific and a tensile and compressive stress field can exist simultaneously in thick layer composites.

The interphase is a region between fibers and a matrix, which has different properties from the matrix and the fibers, but is dependent on them. Considering the interphase region has a significant effect on the accuracy of obtained residual stresses. So far, in order to obtain the micromechanical residual stresses, the interphase properties are considered as an average. In this paper, the properties of the interphase are assumed variable by using a suitable UMAT code in the ABAQUS software. The equations of previous studies that have acquired interphase properties to be variable are used to write the UMAT code. A representative volume element (RVE) in polymer composites is modeled in three phases in the ABAQUS software and the interphase properties are considered as FGM by using the UMAT code. Temperature variation during curing to environment temperature is the only loading factor in the RVE. The matrix, fiber and interphase stresses are obtained in the ABAQUS software. The achieved stresses were compared with the results of previous studies that considered interphase properties as average. Finite element and energy methods were used in previous papers but in the present study just the finite element method with variable interphase properties was use. In addition, residual stress diagrams with the variable interphase properties are plotted to study the effect of the thermal expansion coefficient. The results of this study are similar to those in previous ones, and the curves are improved.

In this research, the influences of modal properties of a micro cubic satellite on equivalent static loads (due to combination of quasi-static and dynamic loads during launch time) have been studied. The study shows that the magnitude of equivalent static loads can be affected by satellite effective modes and effective mass distribution along natural frequencies. Besides, when to distinct launchers with different dynamic environments candidate for launch, analytical results illustrate that sometimes the equivalent static combined load value can be higher for the launcher with smaller quasi-static loads. This phenomenon is due to effective modal mass distribution of the satellite. Consequently, a higher combined load may be occurred during launch for smaller quasi-static conditions. Furthermore, in separation phase of satellite from the launcher, the satellite modal parameters influence the magnitude of applied shock load in both axial (launch) and lateral directions, importantly. Thus the present study yields reliable input values for separation shock test which considers dynamic properties of the satellite in comparison with some standards and launcher manuals, suggest a rough estimation of shock load, neglecting the satellite structure dynamic behavior.