Mixed mode I/III fatigue behaviour of Polyetheretherketone

• Fracture mechanical fatigue testing was performed on PEEK in mode I and mode I/III mixed loading. • Equivalent stress intensity factor can be used to describe a joint failure curve. • Pre-factor α for mode III contribution has to be significantly adapted for PEEK. • Fracture surface morphology is heavily dependent on ratio of mode I to mode III loading. In this work, the fatigue behaviour of Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) under tensile (mode I) and out of plane shear (mode III) loading was examined by using razor blade notched cylindrical bars. By varying the applied mode I and mode III loadings, fatigue fracture curves of pure mode I and mixed mode I/III were established. The aim was to find a suitable method to describe the behaviour of both pure mode I and mixed mode I/III loading via a singular equivalent stress intensity factor. This was found possible by increasing the coefficient of the mode III contribution by more than 500 % compared to previous work on other thermoplastic materials. This significant change of the mode III contribution was mainly attributed to the different thermo-mechanical state of PEEK at the testing temperature of 23 °C, as well as the good friction properties of PEEK which leads to a transferal of mode III contributions to mode I contributions due to crack flank sliding of the formed factory roof formations on the fracture surfaces.