Abstract
A comprehensive experimental investigation to understand the mechanical properties and fatigue behaviour of glass-reinforced polyamide (PA66 GF30) at different temperatures is presented in this paper. The specimens for quasi-static and fatigue testing were machined from previously extruded plates, where two orientations were considered: (i) the extrusion direction (ED) and (ii) the direction perpendicular to extrusion (PED). Both the quasi-static and fatigue tests were performed under different temperatures (22 °C and 100 °C). The fatigue tests were performed in a load control regime under pulsating loading (R = 0.1) to create S-N curves for all the temperatures and loading directions. The experimental results of the quasi-static tests showed that the test specimens manufactured in the extrusion direction have better mechanical properties when compared to those of the specimens manufactured perpendicular to the extrusion direction. Furthermore, the analysis of the quasi-static tensile test results showed that tensile strength, yield strength, and the modulus of elasticity are significantly dependent on the temperature and deteriorate when the temperature is increased from 22 °C to 100 °C. The results of the fatigue tests showed that at both the temperatures (22 °C and 100 °C), the samples produced in the direction of extrusion exhibited higher fatigue strength than those produced perpendicular to the direction of extrusion. For all the sample orientations, the fatigue strength decreased significantly with increasing temperature. The obtained experimental results could be very useful when designing and dimensioning different dynamically loaded engineering components made of PA66 GF30 subjected to high temperatures.