Fatigue behaviour of 10% wt. short glass fibre reinforced recycled Polypropylene with mineral filler in presence of notches

An experimental investigation of the fatigue behaviour of plain and notched specimens made of 10% wt. short glass fibre reinforced partially recycled Polypropylene filled with mineral filler is presented. To this end, plain and V-notched specimens (with notch radius ranging from 0.07 mm to 10 mm) were produced by injection moulding and tested under tension-tension fatigue. During the fatigue test, the damage evolution was monitored using a traveling microscope to define the number of cycles spent for the fatigue crack initiation. The fracture surfaces were analysed at microscopic level in order to investigate the fatigue damage mechanisms of plain and notched specimens. The fatigue tests were first analysed in terms of net stress amplitude to define the stress-life curves. Then, an energy-based approach was proposed to reduce the scatter of the fatigue data of plain and notched specimens. Starting from the damage evolution observed during the fatigue tests, the model relies on the strain energy density numerically evaluated in the matrix and averaged on a structural volume embracing the notch tip.