Crack-growth controlled failure of short fibre reinforced thermoplastics: Influence of fibre orientation

Abstract

The effect of flow-induced fibre orientation on the fatigue performance of short fibre reinforced thermoplastics is investigated. Relative contributions of creep (static, time-dependent) and fatigue (cycle dependent) components are studied extensively by performing tests at different frequencies and load ratios for different fibre orientations and fibre weight fractions. An anisotropic, phenomenological model of crack growth controlled failure is proposed that relates creep/fatigue contributions to the lifetime in the crack growth controlled failure region for different fibre orientations and allows to extrapolate and estimate time-to-failure under a static load using short-term cyclic tests.

Topics & Concepts