| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 778096 | International Journal of Fatigue | 2016 | 6 Pages |
•Fatigue crack growth behavior of the silica particle reinforced epoxy resin composite is Kmax controlled regardless of stress ratio.•The fatigue crack growth behavior is found to be time dependent based on the Kmax constant fatigue tests with various stress ratios and frequencies.•The fatigue crack mainly propagates in the resin matrix even along the interface between matrix and particle.
The fatigue crack growth behavior in a silica particle reinforced epoxy resin composite was investigated under two levels of constant Kmax with various stress ratios R and frequencies, where the ranges of R and frequency were from 0.05 to 0.7 and from 0.1 to 10 Hz, respectively. The crack growth rate da/dt under a constant Kmax was almost constant regardless of R and frequency, which clearly confirmed that the crack growth behavior of the present epoxy resin composite was Kmax-controlled and time-dependent. The crack path and fracture surface observations revealed that the crack propagated mostly in the matrix: even for the crack propagation along the boundary between silica particle and matrix, the crack propagated in the matrix near the boundary.
