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Mechanisms of fatigue in short glass fiber reinforced polyamide 6
Author(s) -
Horst J. J.,
Spoormaker J. L.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.10671
Subject(s) - materials science , composite material , ultimate tensile strength , polyamide , fractography , fracture (geology) , glass fiber , fatigue limit , fiber
An adaptation to existing failure models for fatigue fracture of short fiber reinforced thermoplastics is presented, based on results using some new experimental methods. These results lead to the following conclusion: Cracks in polyamide remain bridged (by plastically drawn matrix material and/or fibers) until just before final fracture. Important is the conditioning of the polyamide: conditioned to equilibrium water content, this mechanism occurs, but not when it is dry as molded. Fatigue damage measurements were done on thin foils cut from the fatigued specimen. When tensile tested, these foils show a change in both strength and fracture strain after fatigue. Further observations during the experiments and SEM fractography strengthen the conviction that fatigue damage initiates and grows in the form of bridged cracks. A correlation between tensile strength and fatigue strength was found; the degree of fiber alignment has a similar effect on both tensile and fatigue properties.