Effect of fiber orientation on the fatigue crack initiation and propagation of glass fiber reinforced plastics

Abstract In recent years, glass‐fiber‐reinforced plastic (GFRP) applications have expanded. This study elucidates the fatigue fracture mechanism of GFRP with different fiber orientations and experimentally clarifies the relationship between fiber orientation and fracture mechanism by using specimens with unidirectional simple fiber orientations. First, Static tensile and fatigue tests are performed on two types of specimens with fibers oriented in a single direction (parallel to the load axis and orthogonal to the load axis), and it is found that specimens with a single fiber orientation parallel to the load axis shows higher strength in both tests. Next, In the case of GFRP with fibers oriented parallel to the load axis, it is found that fatigue loading causes fatigue crack initiation at the fiber ends, followed by fiber localized debonding due to crack propagation at the fiber‐matrix interface and that the crack propagation rate gradually decreases and stops. Therefore, this suggests that the increase in fiber length of fibers oriented parallel to the load axis in GFRP leads to an increase in the crack propagation life at the fiber‐matrix interface, which leads to an increase in fatigue life.