Fatigue damage mechanisms of short fiber reinforced PA66 as observed by in-situ synchrotron X-ray microtomography

The understanding of fatigue damage mechanisms of short fiber reinforced thermoplastics are a key issue in order to optimize material processing and propose physically based multiscale fatigue damage models. The presented work aims at a fine description of 3D damage development as observed by synchrotron X-ray microtomography. Damage processes at the micro and mesoscale are fully described in order to extract the elementary damage mechanisms, their sequence and kinetics. The effects of local fiber configuration and orientation are particularly detailed. From observations it is clearly evidenced that cavitation plays a major role in the fatigue damage process as it triggers all elementary damage mechanisms observed at the microscale. It is also shown that a characteristic length appears in the fatigue damage development. This internal length is in the order of magnitude of the spherulite size, suggesting a strong impact of the spherulite size on the fatigue damage development. Finally the effect of local fiber orientation on the micro and meso crack orientation is presented.