Accounting for the microstructure in the prediction of the fatigue life of injection moulded composites for automotive applications

Fatigue characterization of injection moulded carbon fibre is conducted on specimens from ten locations on a flat plaque and two locations from an automotive oil pan. Fatigue testing was carried out using tension–tension and fully reversed loading at room temperature and 120 °C using the specimens from the flat plaques. The stiffness and microstructure of the ten locations are used to calibrate a micromechanics model to evaluate the maximum...