Abnormality in using cyclic fatigue for ranking static fatigue induced slow crack growth behavior of polyethylene pipe grade resins

Slow crack growth behavior in polyethylene pipe grade resins were studied using both static fatigue (stress-rupture) and cyclic fatigue tests. This was done to better understand the applicability of cyclic fatigue in the prediction of slow crack growth ranking determined from the static fatigue test. In all polyethylene pipe grade resins tested at 80 °C, reduced crack growth failure times were exhibited when the cyclic fatigue test was employed. However, when applied to rank the resins through their slow crack failure times, the cyclic fatigue results did not always confirm those obtained from the static fatigue test. That is, in some cases, a resin with higher slow crack resistance ranking (longer failure times) than another resin in static fatigue exhibited lower ranking (shorter failure times) in the cyclic fatigue test. This abnormality of reversal in ranking is not a general observation but does occur. Based on the data obtained so far, when resins with smaller differences between static fatigue and cyclic fatigue slow crack growth failure times are compared with those resins having larger differences, the chances of correctly predicting the ranking obtained from static fatigue using cyclic fatigue tend to decrease. Hence, it is suggested that one needs to practice caution when using cyclic fatigue to predict the static fatigue ranking of resins for slow cracking resistance. Some insight into the cause of such abnormality is discussed with reference to creep-fatigue interactions.