Fatigue Characterization of Fluorogold and Fluorogreen Polymers

The damage dissipated during fatigue crack propagation of fluorogold and fluorogreen polymeric materials has been studied using an automated data acquisition system (DAS). A low fatigue frequency of 1 Hz was performed under a tension-tension load-control fatigue test. All samples were notched with a notch-to-width ratio a/W of 0.1. Deformation, load, and hysteresis energy loops were measured continuously during the test and analyzed using the DAS. The calculations were based on the energy release rate J* and on the change in work expanded on damage formation and history-dependent viscous dissipative processes \( \dot{W}_{i} \). The modified crack layer (MCL) model was used for extracting material-related parameters including the specific energy of damageγ′ and the coefficient of energy dissipation β′. The MCL theory was proven valid for describing the damage and cracking behavior of fluorogold and fluorogreen materials. The two parameters γ′ and β′ are also suitable for the evaluation of the resistance to fracture and fatigue crack propagation.