Local microstructure and stress distributions at the crack initiation site in a short fiber reinforced polyamide under fatigue loading

This work aims to study the influence of the fiber distribution on the damage onset in a short glass fiber reinforced polyamide under fatigue loading. A fatigue test of a notched specimen was interrupted at crack initiation, then a small sample around the notch was machined from the specimen and analyzed by means of X-Ray Computed Tomography (X-Ray CT) for the quantitative description of the fiber distribution. The real microstructure was reconstructed and then simulated in the Finite Element Method (FEM) code ABAQUS. The analysis gives an insight into the local matrix stress distributions at the notch tip.