Fast screening of the fatigue properties of thermoplastics reinforced with short carbon fibers based on a heat build-up protocol

This study deals with the characterization of the fatigue lifetime of a short carbon fiber reinforced PEEK matrix thermoplastic composite using a heat build-up protocol. Several commercial grades and fillers ratios are considered in order to challenge the ability of the technique to capture the influence of these variations. First, the materials investigated and the experimental protocols are described. The way to build the heat build-up curves is outlined. Then the results obtained from the heat build-up and the fatigue experiments are presented. Finally these results are used to discuss two main points. The first one is the validity of the hypotheses needed to apply the approach, ranging from the evaluation of the dissipation to the response during the fatigue tests. The second one is the capability to predict the fatigue curves accurately throughout an energetic criterion and to catch the influence of the variation of material on the fatigue properties. The results presented here are published with more details in [47]