An empirical model for fatigue behavior prediction of glass fibre-reinforced plastic composites for various stress ratios and test frequencies

Current models used to predict the fatigue life of glass fibre-reinforced plastic composites do not accurately consider the effects of load stress ratios and load frequencies. These models usually require significant amount of experimental data to establish a set of characteristic fatigue curves for a given composite. This paper proposes a fatigue model for glass fibre-reinforced plastic composites that includes the nonlinear effect of stress ratio and load frequency on the fatigue life. The model can be used to predict the fatigue behavior of a composite material using a well-defined minimum number of tests. Fatigue data from the literature and selected research laboratories were used to test the model. Predictions were found to be in good agreement with all experimental data adequately accounting for the influence of test frequency and stress ratio on the fatigue life of composites. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.