Enabling rapid fatigue life prediction of short carbon fiber reinforced polyether-ether-ketone using a novel energy dissipation–based model

In this study, the energy dissipation behavior of short carbon fiber reinforced polyether-ether-ketone (SCFR-PEEK) subjected to fatigue loading is investigated. A new model is established to rapidly predict the fatigue limit and S-N curve for SCFR-PEEK by combining thermodynamic laws and fatigue damage mechanisms. An infrared camera is used during the fatigue tests to monitor the evolution of the temperature distribution of the specimen. The energy dissipated during the fatigue test is calculated by solving local thermodynamic differential equations based on the variation in surface temperature of the specimen. Based on thermodynamic laws and the fatigue damage characteristics of SCFR-PEEK, the different sources of intrinsic dissipation are analyzed and classified to determine their correlation to fatigue damage. The intrinsic dissipation contributing to fatigue damage is extracted and used to estimate the fatigue properties of SCFR-PEEK. The model predictions show a satisfactory agreement with the results of traditional fatigue tests, with a goodness of fit of 0.964.