J. Phys. IV France 123 (2005) 273-280
DOI: 10.1051/jp4:2005123049

Cyclic fatigue behaviour of fibre reinforced rubber-toughened nylon composite materials

L. Pinot¹, M. Gomina¹, J.-P. Jernot¹, R. Moreau² and E. Nakache<sup>3

1</sup>  Équipe Structure et Comportement Thermomécanique des Matériaux (ESCTM) du CRISMAT, UMR 6508 CNRS/ENSICAEN, 6 Bd. du Maréchal Juin, 14050 Caen Cedex 4, France
²  Institut Supérieur de Plasturgie d'Alençon (ISPA), Site Universitaire de Montfoulon, 61250 Damigny, France
³  Laboratoire de Chimie Moléculaire et Thio-organique UMR CNRS 6507, ENSICAEN, 6 Bd. du Maréchal Juin, 14050 Caen Cedex 4, France

Abstract
The effects of the amount of rubber, the concentration of fibres and the state of the fibre/matrix interface upon the mechanical behaviour of glass fibre/rubber-toughened nylon ternary blends are checked. First, monotonic tensile tests were carried out on different intermediate materials and then on the ternary blends to derive the stress-strain curves and document the damage mechanisms. Cyclic fatigue tests were implemented on tensile specimens and the results were analysed in terms of the reduction of the Young's modulus, the increase of the hysteresis energy rate in the stress-strain diagram and the temperature rise. These findings were correlated to fractographic observations to assess the role of the different constituents.

Key words: rubber-toughened nylon; glass fibre; ternary blends; image analysis; cyclic fatigue tests; fractographic observations.


© EDP Sciences 2005