International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942

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International Journal of Fatigue

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Fatigue damage model for injection-molded short glass fibre

reinforced thermoplastics
H. Nouri a, F. Meraghni a,*, P. Lory b
a
LPMM UMR CNRS 7554, ENSAM Metz, 4, Rue Augustin Fresnel, 57078 Metz, France
b
Technocentre Renault, TCR LAB 136 1, Avenue du Golf, 78288 Guyancourt, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The present paper is a contribution to the phenomenological modelling of fatigue non-linear cumulative
Received 22 April 2008 diffuse damage in short glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic matrix composites. In such materials, fatigue
Received in revised form 3 October 2008 damage kinetic exhibits three stages, namely: (i) material softening and damage initiation, (ii) coales-
Accepted 15 October 2008
cence and propagation of micro-cracks and (iii) macroscopic cracks propagation and material failure.
Available online 1 November 2008
The proposed model is built in the framework of the continuum damage mechanics and aims at predict-
ing these three stages of the damage evolution. This model is based on the approach initially proposed by
Keywords:
Ladevèze and Le Dantec [Ladevèze P, Le Dantec E. Damage modelling of the elementary ply for laminated
Fatigue
Damage mechanics
composites. Comp Sci Technol 1992;43:257–67]. It extends the previous approach and takes into account
Polymer matrix composite the important stiffness reduction observed during the first damage stage. The above is modelled by the
Short fibre integration of a combined Norton-like power law and an exponential law expressing the damage rates as
a function of the associated thermodynamic dual forces. The model has been formulated in terms of
strain energy, so that makes easy its numerical implementation into the finite element code Abaqus/Stan-
dard through a user defined material subroutine UMAT. Numerical simulations are performed on a short
glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic described by a given set of damage parameters. Damage evolutions
predicted by the developed model reproduce well those observed for this kind of composites under cyclic
loading. A parametric study is performed to understand the effects of the model parameters on the dam-
age accumulation and their sensitivity on its kinetic. The sensitivity study would be useful since it con-
tributes to optimise the ongoing experimental procedure aimed at identifying the damage model
parameters.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction much discrepancy with regard to the actual composite overall

For reinforced thermoplastics, safety against fatigue damage is
considered as the decisive factor for an optimum part design. How-
ever, the optimal design must be assessed with a minimum of
expensive prototype testing. To reach this goal, material and struc-
tures analysis must be carried-out numerically in terms of strength
and damage accumulation brought about by a cyclic loading.
In the case of reinforced thermoplastic composites, the assess-
ment of structural integrity and durability requires unavoidably
the prediction of fatigue damage accumulation. Since damage can-
not be entirely avoided, composite structures should be designed
to behave safely in presence of a moderate progressive degrada-
tion. Therefore, it is important to be able to predict the overall
damaged behaviour. Nevertheless, the fatigue damage model
should not be too complex since the analysis is time-consuming.
Simplifications and assumptions have to be made without too
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 87 37 54 59; fax: +33 3 87 37 42 84.
E-mail address: FODIL.MERAGHNI@metz.ensam.fr (F. Meraghni).
response.
Fibre-reinforced composites have a rather good rating as re-
gards to life time in fatigue. Furthermore, fatigue damage in fi-
bre-reinforced composite materials is a quite complex
phenomenon notably in terms of onset and evolution, and a large
research effort is being spent on it nowadays. The main reasons
for this are the different types of damage that can occur (fibre frac-
ture, matrix cracking, matrix crazing, fibre buckling, fibre–matrix
interface failure, delamination . . .), their interactions, their differ-
ent growth rates and kinetics.
The micro-mechanisms of damage accumulation occur some-
times independently and sometimes interactively, and the pre-
dominance of one or other of them may be strongly affected by
both material variables and testing conditions.
In case of composite materials, the damage is characterised by
the material irreversible degradations. The basic modes of the
material degradation have been studied and modelled in case of sta-
tic [1–3] and cyclic loads [4,5]. The damage consists mainly in the
onset, the coalescence and the propagation of matrix micro-cracks,

0142-1123/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2008.10.002
 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942
interface debonding and fibre breakage. For cyclic loading, compos-
ite materials may exhibit a stiffness reduction beginning at the first
cycle. It increases progressively leading to macroscopic failure.
In glass fibre reinforced composites subjected to cyclic loading,
it appears that the damage evolution occurs according to three
stages [6]:
 Stage 1: This stage corresponds to the onset of ‘‘damage zones”,
which contain matrix microcracks and other forms of damage,
such as matrix micro-voids. Hence, damage starts very early
after a low number of loading cycles. It gives rise to an initial
high stiffness reduction of the composite material, notably for
low and moderate levels of imposed load or displacement.
 Stage 2: This stage corresponds to the coalescence and the prop-
agation of the micro-discontinuities created during the first
stage. The propagation occurs notably at the fibre–matrix inter-
face zones. A gradual stiffness reduction of the material is then
observed. This stage is a behaviour accommodation and is char-
acterised by a relative steady reduction of the composite stiff-
ness as a function of cycle number.
 Stage 3: It corresponds to the last stage and is characterised by a
dramatic damage accumulation due to the appearing of fibre
fracture and macroscopic cracks propagation. The third damage
stage may result in a rapid stiffness reduction leading to the
total material failure.
In the open literature, fatigue damage in polymer composites
has been extensively investigated and modelled [1–4,7–9]. Among
them, the model proposed by Reifsnider and Gao [4] using a con-
cept of critical and subcritical elements in the laminated
composite.
An original approach was developed by Ladevèze and Le Dantec
[9], it is based on the theory of anisotropic damage. The model was
formulated in the stress space and presents the well-known diffi-
culties related to finite element implementation through a stress
approach. This model has been mainly used for unidirectional or
laminated thermoset matrix composites and has been reformu-
lated in terms of strain energy [10].
Liu and Mahadevan [11] proposed a unified multiaxial fatigue
damage model integrating both isotropic and anisotropic materials
into one framework. It has been compared with most available
critical plane-based models for multiaxial fatigue problem. This
model focuses on stress-based approaches for multiaxial high-cy-
cle fatigue, which can be divided into four groups: equivalent
stress approach, stress invariant approach [11–13], average stress
approach [14], and critical plane stress approach [15–19].
Analytical models based on cumulative damage laws were
developed by the authors of Refs. [20–22]. A model based on
damage mechanics and uses a thermodynamics potential has
been proposed by Alliche [23]. This model describes the aniso-
tropic character of micro-cracked material under compressive
loading. Others types of fatigue damage model are those based
on residual strength reduction [24–26]. Gagel et al. have proposed
an empirical approach describing the fatigue damage [27]. They
use a ‘‘non-scalar approach” to describe the mechanical degrada-
tion and failure of tension–compression fatigue loaded glass fibre
non-crimp fabric reinforced epoxy laminates. The developed
modelling relies upon experimentally obtained parameters to de-
scribe damage evolution and lifetime. Recently, Sonsino and
Moosbrugger [28] have investigated the fatigue strength behav-
iour of a short-glass fibre reinforced polyamide PA66-GF35. The
authors focused on the influencing variables like notches, fibre
orientation, temperature, mean stress and spectrum loading in or-
der to optimise the fatigue design of high loaded plastic parts in
engine compartments.
935
The present paper intends to develop a phenomenological mod-
elling of fatigue damage in injection-molded short glass fibre rein-
forced thermoplastics. In the model formulation, the damage is
assumed to be diffuse. Hence, the validity scope of the proposed
model focuses on the diffuse damage state prior the damage local-
isation preceding the macroscopic failure. In the present approach,
based on the Ladevèze and Le Dantec work [9], the damage is mod-
elled through five internal state variables which are coupled with
the overall behaviour law. The damage evolution, corresponding
to the kinetic of the material degradation under cyclic mechanical
loading is obtained by a dissipation law expressed as a function of
strains.
With regard to the published works dealing with fatigue dam-
age in reinforced thermoplastics, the developed model is devoted
to the prediction of the three stages of the damage evolution
characterising the short glass reinforced thermoplastics. In fact,
as mentioned above the fatigue damage in short glass fibre rein-
forced thermoplastics occurs according to three stages. It should
be noted that the first damage stage, related to the material soft-
ening, gives rise to an initial stiffness reduction and governs the
subsequent damage evolution. The proposed model is built in
the framework of the continuum damage mechanics and aims
at predicting these three stages of the damage evolution. It in-
tends to capture the important stiffness reduction observed dur-
ing the first damage stage due to the material softening. The
obtained damage accumulation model appears to provide reliable
fatigue predictions with a good accuracy for orthotropic rein-
forced thermoplastic composites.
The proposed model is built in the framework of the continuum
damage mechanics using an incremental description of the aniso-
tropic damage kinetic. This formulation could be useful to predict
the anisotropic damage evolution under multiaxial cyclic load
and even with variable amplitude.
The formulation is written in the strain space making easier the
numerical implementation than a stress formulation. Indeed, the
proposed damage model is numerically coupled to solid, shell and
plate finite elements. It should be stressed that all of these finite
elements have displacement formulation in the Abaqus code [29].
In the present work, primarily, the damage model has been
numerically implemented into a FE code Abaqus [29]. This has
been performed to predict the fatigue damaged behaviour of in-
jected short glass fibre reinforced polyamide (PA-6) and polypro-
pylene (PP).
Finally, a parametric study is carried-out to discriminate and
understand the effects of the model damage parameters on the
material degradation kinetic. It would be useful in optimising
experimental procedure devoted to the identification of the dam-
age model parameters.
2. Anisotropic fatigue damage modelling
2.1. Problem description
To develop an accurate modelling taking into account the three
damage stages characterising reinforced thermoplastics, the model
initially proposed by Ladevèze and Le Dantec [9], denoted hereafter
by (LLD-model), was reformulated and modified. Once imple-
mented into Abaqus FE code, it has been noticed that the damage
evolutions predicted by the LLD-model are different from those
generally observed for short glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic
composites [8,4]. Indeed, as shown in Fig. 1 illustrating the evolu-
tion of longitudinal damage variable (d11) predicted by the LLD-
model, it seems that the damage kinetic predicted by the LLD-mod-
el is mainly reduced during the first cycles whereas it has been ob-
served that a high damage kinetic occurs at the first stage of
936 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942

0.8

0.7
LLD-model
0.6

Damage (d11)
0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Number of cycles

Fig. 1. Prediction of longitudinal (d11) damage variable evolution as a function of cycle number. The damage evolution is simulated by Ladevèze and Le Dantec model (LLD-
model) for the case of a load controlled fatigue test.

1 h i
damage. For thermoplastic reinforced composites, the first damage
2W e ¼ ðE011 e11 þ m21 E011 e22 Þe11 þ ðm12 E022 e11 þ E022 e22 Þe22
stage is associated with the onset of micro-cracks giving rise to a 1  m12 m21
damage increase and consequently to a material softening. In an at- þ G012 c212 þ G013 c213 þ G023 c223
tempt to predict the three damage stages observed for short glass
ð2Þ
fibre reinforced thermoplastics, the present paper deals with a
new formulation of a damage model based on the LLD-model. In In the case of a material stiffness reduction, the strain energy of the
the following sections, the new formulated model has been also damaged material, denoted by (Wd), is obtained from Eq. (1) and Eq.
implemented into Abaqus FE code through a user subroutine mate- (2) where E011 , E022 , G012 , G013 and G023 are substituted by the corre-
rial UMAT [29]. sponding damaged moduli E11, E22, G12, G13 and G23.
Hence, one can express the strain energy of the damaged mate-
2.2. Fatigue damage model formulation rial by:

1 h
As indicated in the introduction, the damage evolution and 2W d ¼ E0 ð1  d11 Þe11 he11 þ m21 e22 iþ
1  m12 m21 11
accumulation in reinforced thermoplastic composites occur i
according to three stages. The developed model should be able to þ E011 e11 he11 þ m21 e22 i
capture the three damage stages observed for these kinds of com- 1 h
posite materials, notably the first stage where an important stiff- þ E0 ð1  d22 Þe22 he22 þ m12 e11 iþ
1  m12 m21 22
ness reduction occurred before reaching a steady damage i
accumulation prior the material failure. During the first few cycles, þ E022 e22 he22 þ m12 e11 i þ G012 ð1  d12 Þc212 þ G013 ð1  d13 Þc213
the damage kinetic is mainly due to the material softening depend- þ G023 ð1  d23 Þc223 ð3Þ
ing on the applied strain or stress level.
In the proposed model the response of the undamaged material where (<A>+) and (<A>) stand for the positive and negative parts
is assumed to be orthotropic linearly elastic and the damage is as- of amount A, respectively. Thus, the damage should affect E11 (resp.
sumed to be diffuse. According to the continuum damage mechan- E22) only when e11 + m21e22 (resp. e11 + m21e22) is positive. Indeed,
ics (CDM), the damage is introduced through five internal state this makes sense and could be explained as following: when the
variables, coupled to elastic behaviour. Indeed, the damage accu- material is subjected to a compressive loading, transverse matrix
mulation may bring about a stiffness reduction characterised by cracks are supposed to be closed up and do not have any more influ-
the elastic moduli of the damaged material. These are expressed ence on the damage evolution. During tension loading those cracks
as follows: are active and contribute to the development of the damage.
The thermodynamic dual variables (Yij) associated to the dam-
E11 ¼ E011 ð1  d11 Þ
age variables dij are deduced from the strain energy (Wd) of the
E22 ¼ E022 ð1  d22 Þ damaged material, as given by Eq. (4)
G12 ¼ G012 ð1  d12 Þ ð1Þ 8 0
>
> Y 11 ¼  @W d
¼ 12  1m12
1
m21 E11 e11 he11 þ m21 e22 iþ
G13 ¼ G013 ð1  d13 Þ >
> @d11
>
> 0
>
> Y 22 ¼  @W d
¼ 12  1m12
1
m21 E22 e22 he22 þ m12 e11 iþ
G23 ¼ G023 ð1  d23 Þ >
< @d22

Y 12 ¼  @W d
¼ 12 G012 c212 ð4Þ
>
>
@d12
 Eij: Longitudinal and transverse Young’s modulus (i = j, 1, 2). >
> 1 0 2
>
> Y 13 ¼  @W d
¼ G
2 13 13
c
 Gij: In plane and transverse shear modulus (i – j, 1, 2, 3). >
> @d13
>
:Y 1 0 2
 dij: Internal damage state variables. 23 ¼  @W d
@d23
¼ G
2 23 23
c

The superscript 0 indicates the undamaged state of the material. Damage rates (d_ ij ) correspond to the damage kinetics and are
The elastic strain energy of a non damaged material is denoted expressed as a function of the thermodynamic forces (Yij). In the
hereafter (We) and is given by the following expression as a func- present work, damage rates are assumed to be the sum of two
tion of the strain tensor (eij): components: the first contribution is derived from the Norton-like
 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942 937

power law. The second component is introduced in order to Fig. 2 presents the evolution of the damage d and the damage
describe the stiffness reduction occurring during the first damage _ versus the number of cycles N for two kind of loading: a
rate ðdÞ
stage due to the material softening of reinforced thermoplastics. displacement controlled test (Fig. 2a and b) and a load controlled
It is expressed by an exponential law of the dual forces. The devel- test (Fig. 2c and d).
oped model is then a complete model in the sense that the entire First, one focuses on the case when the fatigue test is displace-
damage process (3 stages) could be described, notably the first ment controlled. The proposed model, illustrated by the solid line,
stage. Damage rates are then given by _ is first decreasing before reaching a constant value
predicts that ðdÞ
(Fig. 2a). This can be deduced and explained from Eqs (4) and (5).
@d11 a11 b11
¼ d_ 11 ¼ ðY 11 Þb11 1 þ k11 ðY 11 Þðeðd11 NÞ Þ Indeed, when a fixed displacement is imposed the strain remains
@N 1 þ b11
constant in a representative volume (RVE) and hence the dual force
@d22 a22 b22
¼ d_ 22 ¼ ðY 22 Þb22 1 þ k22 ðY 22 Þðeðd22 NÞ Þ (Y) is also constant as expressed by Eq. (4). Therefore, as N becomes
@N 1 þ b22 large, the second contribution, involving the exponential function,
@d12 a12 b12 vanishes and the damage rate becomes governed by the power
¼ d_ 12 ¼ ðY 12 Þb12 1 þ k12 ðY 12 Þðeðd12 NÞ Þ ð5Þ
@N 1 þ b12 law. Therefore, the damage evolution (Fig. 2b) deduced by integrat-
_ reveals two stages. During the first stage, (d) increases rap-
ing ðdÞ
@d13 a13 b13
¼ d_ 13 ¼ ðY 13 Þb13 1 þ k13 ðY 13 Þðeðd13 NÞ Þ idly. The second stage is characterised by a steady state growth of
@N 1 þ b13
damage (d). Predictions from the LLD-model (dotted line) are also
@d23 a23 b23
¼ d_ 23 ¼ ðY 23 Þb23 1 þ k23 ðY 23 Þðeðd23 NÞ Þ presented in Fig. 2a and b. It appears that the first stage cannot be
@N 1 þ b23
clearly captured by the LLD-model. This is due to the fact that the
where a11, b11, k11 and d11 are the material damage parameters model does not take into account the stiffness reduction of the
associated to the longitudinal direction. a12, b12, k12 and d12 are composite occurring at the early growth of damage (stage 1).
the material damage parameters related to in-plane shear damage For the case where the fatigue test is load controlled. The ther-
and a22, b22, k22 and d22 are those characterising the damage in modynamics force Y is no more constant but it increases as N in-
the transversal direction. a13, b13, k13 and d13 and a23, b23, k23 and creases. The latter leads to a raise in the damage rate for large
d23 are the material parameters related to transverse shear damage. number of cycles as shown in Fig. 2c. The third stage is then clearly
For each cycle (N), the damage state variables dij(N) are obtained represented by the present model and is characterised by a dra-
qs
by integration of Eq. (5), with initial conditions dij ðN ¼ 0Þ ¼ dij . matic growth of the damage for only low number of cycles, as
These initial values are function of the imposed displacement or shown in Fig. 2d (solid line). The LLD-model (dotted line) is able
load and are estimated just after the preloading stage prior the to capture the two last stages in the case of a load controlled test,
fatigue test. In the case where the applied strain eapp
ij (or stress) is but still suffers from a lack in describing the first stage.
below a damage threshold value associated to the beginning of From Eq. (5), it appears that the proposed model involves 20
qs
the damage process in the (i, ,j) direction, dij ¼ 0. parameters in the general case of a 3-D composite orthotropic
Fig. 2 shows a comparison between the present model (solid structure. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that the model is
line) and the LLD-model (dotted line) in a schematic point of view. essentially developed for thin composite structures. In that partic-
For sake of simplicity, it is considered only the damage described ular case, relationships governing the damage evolution are re-
by a variable denoted by (d) corresponding to (d11) for instance. duced to equations expressing the in-plane damage: d11, d22 and
It is worth noting that the other directions are damaged according d12. Consequently, only 12 parameters have to be identified,
to the same schematic trend. namely: 4 parameters per damage variable.

a b
∂d d
∂N Stage 2
Stage 1

dqs
Displacement controlled Displacement controlled
N N
c d
∂d d Stage 3
∂N Stage 2
Stage 1

Load controlled dqs Load controlled

N N

Present model
LLD-model

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the damage rate and the subsequent damage evolution predicted by the LLD-model and the proposed model for two different loading
conditions.
938 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942

3. Numerical implementation of the developed damage model –
UMAT subroutine
Abaqus code is a versatile FE computing package that allows the
user to define its own material behaviour with custom subroutines.
In the present work, a User MATerial (UMAT) subroutine was
developed to implement the proposed model through a FORTRAN
subroutine linked with Abaqus software. The looping scheme is
shown in the following flow chart (Fig. 3).
The above equations lend themselves well to numerical imple-
mentation into finite element software. For numerical computa-
tions, the non-linear cumulative damage is calculated for each
element at its Gauss points (material points) and at every cycle
by integrating the incremental equation (5). The stress state is then
derived from the strain state using the actualised moduli laws gi-
ven in Eq. (1). The damage can then be used to calculate new mate-
rial properties and the simulation is repeated iteratively as
functions of the cycle number until a stopping criteria. The latter
can be expressed as a predefined limit value of the damage in a
considered direction or an overall stiffness reduction of the studied
composite structure. The damage is used to calculate the new
material stiffness values, which are then passed into Abaqus code
for the following cycle (Fig. 4). The following cycle is calculated if
the damage has not reached the stopping criteria. The outputs of
the system are the stiffness reduction resulting from the damage
and the stress at each cycle expressed at the material points (Gauss
points). Indeed, the implementation of the proposed model in the
UMAT results in a quasi-static model because the effects of the cyc-
lic loading are not time dependent. The damage is expressed as a
function of the highest value of the strain reached during a cycle.
As shown in Fig. 4, the stiffness reduction associated with the
damage is transferred and applied at the following cycle when
the UMAT is run again. The computations are performed at the
material points and the stiffness reduction results in an increased
strain (case of load controlled fatigue) or a decreased stress (case
displacement controlled fatigue) and a new damage increment that
will be introduced for the next cycle.
4. Analysis of the damage parameters sensitivity
First, an in-plane part is studied as an application example and
is presented in this section. The modelled structure consists of a
thin plate having a corner shape (Fig. 5). The elastic properties data
introduced into the FE code are up to those corresponding to a
short glass fibre reinforced thermoplastics like polyamide (PP) or
polyamide (PA-66). These are as given in Table 1.
The computed plate is clamped at an extremity and subjected to
a normal uniform load at the other one (Fig. 5). The mesh used for
the FE computation is obtained as a result of a spatial convergence
study. The finite elements adopted for this structure are full-inte-
grated four nodes in-plane stress elements (CPS4).
This geometry allows the validation of the model and numerical
implementation in the case of an in-plane stress state. The fatigue
computation is conducted as a stress-controlled numerical test.
The FEA inputs are rmax = 30 MPa and the ratio of the minimal to
maximal stresses: R = 0. The damage model parameters are listed
in Table 2.
Since the numerical fatigue test is load controlled the strain will
increase as a function of the number of cycles. This mode of control
allows showing the three stages of the damage evolution charac-
terising the short glass fibres reinforced thermoplastics.

Fig. 3. Flow chart of the looping scheme used for the damage computation.

Fig. 5. FE Model and mesh of the studied thin corner composite plate. The
geometric dimensions are expressed in mm.

Table 1
Elastic properties data introduced into the FE code for the application example.

E11 (MPa) E22 (MPa) G12 (MPa) V12

8000 4000 1385 0.34

Table 2
Damage parameters introduced in the present model to predict damage evolution of
Fig. 4. The damage is expressed as a function of the highest value of the strain the studied example.
reached during a cycle. Hence, the stiffness reduction associated with the damage
computed at the highest strain is then transferred and applied at the following cycle a11 a22 a12 b11 b22 b12 d11 d22 d12 k11 k22 k12
when the UMAT is run again and a new damage increment is calculated for the next 0.1 0.1 0.08 6.52 5.52 5.52 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.05 0.05 0.05
cycle.
 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942
Fig. 6. Example of strains and damage fields predicted by the present model at an increment corresponding to a number of cycles N = 1600 cycles.
The in-plane strains fields (e11, e22, e12) and the spatial reparti-
tions of the in-plane damage variables (d11, d22, d12) predicted by
the developed damage model are shown in Fig. 6. The prediction
is computed for a number of cycles N equals to 1600 cycles.
In the second part of this section, a parametric study is per-
formed in order to emphasize and to understand the effect of
material parameters on the damage kinetic and accumulation un-
der cyclic loading. For sake of simplicity, the sensitivity analysis is
carried-out upon the longitudinal direction. Hence, only the longi-
tudinal damage variable (d11) is presented.
Typically, non-linear cumulative damage curves are presented
as a function of number of cycles as displayed in Figs. 7–10. It is
worth noting that the nominal damage parameters have been cho-
sen in such a way that results in a moderate maximum number of
cycles. The latter is fixed up to 10,000 cycles so that reduces the
time of the FE computations conducted for the sensitivity study.
Figs. 7–10 illustrate the damage evolution as a function of the
number of cycles.
It should be noticed that for the sensitivity analysis, when one
of the parameters is varying, the others are fixed and kept con-
stants. Note that nominal fixed values of the damage parameters
are: a = 0.1, b = 6.52, k = 0.05 and d = 0.03. In Figs. 7–10, the curve
in thick solid line (red)1 corresponds to the damage evolution pre-
dicted for the above nominal fixed values of the damage parame-
ters (a = 0.1, b = 6.52, k = 0.05 and d = 0.03).
For the parametric analysis, the FEA inputs are similar to those
taken for the application example, presented in the first part of this
section, namely: rmax = 30 MPa and the ratio of the minimal to
maximal stresses: R = 0.
It should be stressed that FE computations are stopped if the
number of cycles reaches Nmax = 10,000 cycles or (exclusive) when
the damage variable (d11) reaches the maximum damage value,
namely d11 = 1.
As shown in Fig. 7, one notices that when the (d) parameter in-
creases, the first stage of the damage becomes less significant. Con-
sequently, rather than a rapid increase of damage evolution, one
observes a gradual and a steady damage evolution during the first
loading cycles. Therefore, the first stage is more akin to the second
damage stage and both stages can be confounded.
Finally, one notices that the increase of the parameter (d) leads
to an increase of the number of cycles prior to the third damage
stage.
1
For interpretation of the references to colour in Figs. 7–10, the reader is referred
to the web version of this article.
939
Furthermore, it is easy to show that a decrease of the (d) param-
eter will lead to damage kinetics more governed by the first stage
of damage. As expected, damage occurs according to an unstable
and rapid increase. Accordingly, the second stage is almost non-
existent and the third stage is reached for a low number of cycles.
Thus, since a short glass fibres reinforced thermoplastics exhib-
its a damage kinetic with first stage, one expect that the (d) param-
eter will be low with respect to that characterising a unidirectional
composite with thermoset matrix.
As shown in Fig. 8, the variation of the parameter (k) may also
modify the damage kinetic. Indeed, by increasing this parameter
the damage evolution is more accelerated and may lead to a rapid
total degradation. One can notice that the increase of the parame-
ter (k) will have similar result than a decrease of the parameter (d).
Moreover, according to the developed model a composite material
with a low parameter (k) will exhibit a reduced first stage of dam-
age and then a progressive degradation till the final damage stage.
The material reaches the total failure for a relatively high number
of loading cycles.
The parameter (b) has also an important influence on the dam-
age kinetic. In fact, as illustrated in Fig. 9, the parameter (b) controls
the slope of the second stage of damage evolution (linear steady
stage). For instance, to reach a longitudinal modulus reduction of
30%, namely d11 up to 0.30, a material having parameter (b = 4.52)
requires up to 500 cycles whereas another material characterised
by a b = 5.52 goes till 4500 cycles. It is obvious hence that a high va-
lue of the parameter (b) will bring about an increased fatigue life.
For the parameter (a), Fig. 10 shows that by increasing this
damage parameter, one obtains comparable effects to a decrease
of the parameter (b). As expected, both damage parameter a and
b have negligible effects, if any, on the first damage stage but gov-
ern the second damage stage and the beginning of the third one.
This claim can be easily explained by the formulation given by
Eq. (5) notably for load controlled fatigue.
By varying the parameters (k or d), one notices that the transi-
tion from stage 1 to stage 2 occurs at different damage level and
for different number of cycle, as shown in the zoom of Figs. 7
and 8. This result is consistent with Eq. (5) of the model. Indeed,
for low number of cycles, the second term depending on (k and
d): k11 ðY 11 Þðeðd11 NÞ Þ becomes more significant than the first term
depending on (a and b): a1þb 11 b11
11
ðY 11 Þb11 1 .
Regarding the variation of parameters (a) or (b), form Figs. 9
and 10, it is obvious that one does not notice any difference since
these parameters govern mainly the damage rate (slope) of the sec-
ond stage and the onset level of the third one.
940 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942

0.7 0.25

0.24

0.6 δ =0.0004 0.23

0.22

0.5 δ =0.004 0.21

0.2

Damage (d11) 0.19

0.18
0.4
0.17
Transition stage 1 to stage 2
0.16
0.3 0.15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

δ =0.03
0.2 δ =0.04
δ =0.08
δ =1
0.1

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Number of cycles (N)

Fig. 7. Effect of the parameter (d) on the evolution of the damage variable (d11). In the zoom, one observes that the transition from stage 1 to stage 2 occurs at different
damage level and for different number of cycle.

0.8
0.65

λ =0.09 0.6

0.7 0.55

0.5

0.45
λ =0.06
0.6 0.4

0.35

0.3
Damage (d11)

0.5 0.25

0.2 Transition stage 1 to stage 2

λ =0.05
0.15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
0.4
λ =0.03
0.3
λ =0.005
0.2

0.1

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Number of cycles (N)

Fig. 8. Sensitivity of the damage evolution variable (d11) to the parameter (k). The increase of the parameter (k) leads to an increase of the damage level corresponding to the
transition from stage 1 to stage 2.

0.7

0.6
β =3.52 β =5.52

0.5
β =4.52
Damage (d11)

0.4

0.3
β =6.52
0.2 β =8.52

0.1

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Number of cycles (N)

Fig. 9. Sensitivity of the damage variable (d11) evolution to the parameter (b).
 H. Nouri et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 934–942
0.5
0.4
Damage (d11)
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 1000 2000
Fig. 10. Sensitivity of the damage evolution variable (d11) to the parameter (a).
From Eq. (5), one can claim that for a high number of cycles, the
term depending on (k and d) vanishes.
The performed parametric study shed light on the relations be-
tween the damage accumulation and the characteristic material
parameters. A variation of the (k) and (d) parameters governs
mainly the first and the second damage stages. Both parameters
can accelerate or delay the final damage state and hence increase
or decrease the total loading cycles.
Parameters (b) and (a) have a large influence on the damage
rate (slope) of the second stage and the onset level of the third one.
The achieved parametric analysis is useful since it allows opti-
mising the experimental procedure aimed at identifying the mate-
rial parameters. Indeed, as a result of this parametric study it is
obvious that the best identifiability of both parameters (k and d)
will be obtained during the first damage stage namely for a low
number of cycles. The (b) and (a) parameters will be identified dur-
ing the second and the third stages of damage accumulation.
Further work is currently achieved and will be published in the
near future. It deals with the identification of the damaged behav-
iour law parameters using optical whole-field strain measure-
ments coupled to an inverse method [30,31]. This identification
will allow reaching simultaneously the 12 damage parameters
governing the behaviour law in the case of in-plane problem. It
should be pointed out that experimental tests must give rise to
heterogeneous in-plane strain/stress fields. Indeed, in this case,
the constitutive parameters are expected to be all involved in the
in-plane response of the specimen. Therefore, intrinsic behaviour
constants can potentially be extracted through an identification
strategy using kinematics fields obtained from one single coupon.
5. Conclusion
A phenomenological modelling of fatigue diffuse damage in
short glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic matrix composites has
been developed. These kinds of composite materials are character-
ised by an evolution of the diffuse damage according to three
stages.
The damage model is formulated in the strain space, which is
proved to be suitable for numerical implementation into the Aba-
qus FE code. The implementation of the damage model allowed
predicting accurately the damage evolution and capturing the
damage kinetic specific to injected short glass fibre reinforced ther-
moplastics. A numerical example was studied to demonstrate that
the proposed model is thus able to take into account the first stage
of damage due to material softening under cyclic loading. The
941
α =20 α =10
α =8
α =5
α =0.1
3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Number of cycles (N)
model is applied to carry-out a parametric and sensitive study.
The latter has widely contributed to understand the effects of the
model parameters on the damage accumulation and its evolution.
It has been established that the parameters (k) and (d) govern
mainly the first and the second damage stages. Both parameters
(b) and (a) have a large influence on the damage rate (slope) of
the second stage and the onset level of the third one.
The parametric study would be useful since it contributes to
optimise the ongoing experimental procedure aimed at identifying
the damage model parameters. The procedure identification will
use heterogeneous configuration fatigue test and optical full-field
strain measurements coupled to an inverse method. It will allow
reaching simultaneously all of the parameters governing the non-
linear diffuse damage accumulation.
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