Fracture in composites in a nonlinear dynamic scheme

We consider the fracture of a fibre reinforced graphite peek polymer when a n axial periodical fatigue is applied. The energy-time diagram shows variou s critical points during the cyclic tensile loading. An analysis of the tem poral series in the representative phase space, in terms of fractal and emb edding dimension, enhances some properties not revealed by the standard eng ineering approach. In particular, variation of the correlation dimension be fore fracture may be used as a useful indicator for the subsequent breakdow n.