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a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ont., Canada K7K 7B4
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ont., Canada K7K 7B4
Abstract
The fatigue properties of vibration-welded butt joints of nylon 6 and 66 with 30 wt% glass fibres made under low and high weld pres-
sures were examined. Fatigue testing was conducted at a stress ratio of R = 0.1 in load control at frequencies ranging from 3 to 10 Hz.
Specimens tested at both high and low stress levels failed at the weld with no thermal damage. It was found that although weld pressure
affected the fatigue strength, the welded specimens all had similar fatigue behaviour. The reinforced nylon 6 welded in low pressure had
slightly longer fatigue life than the others.
Crown Copyright 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1359-8368/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compositesb.2007.01.012
K.Y. Tsang et al. / Composites: Part B 39 (2008) 396–404 397
[7], and automotive under hood and exterior components. tation in thin edge-gated plaques is parallel to the melt flow
Hence, further study of the fatigue properties of welded direction during cavity filling as shown in Fig. 1 [13]. A
thermoplastics is necessary particularly since they are used schematic is used to illustrate the flow direction as the
increasingly in applications, where they bear considerable fibres are physically short and only show up clearly in pho-
weight and cyclic loads. tographs at high magnification. The details of the fibre ori-
Stokes [8] has studied the fatigue life of vibration-welded entation can be seen is some detail in the fractographs
unreinforced polycarbonate (PC), polyetherimide (PEI), presented later.
modified polyphenylene oxide resin (M-PPO) and The moulded plaques were cut into 60 mm · 100 mm ·
poly(butylenes terephthalate) (PBT), under tension–tension 3.2 mm plates parallel to the flow direction (Fig. 2). The
loading at R = 0.1. The first three polymers are amorphous preferred fibre orientation is therefore along the length of
and PBT is semi-crystalline. Stokes found that the ratio of the plate; typical of what is often encountered in industrial
endurance limit stress to the tensile strength was 0.29 for components. The cut edges were then milled to create a flat
PC, 0.34 for PEI, 0.22 for M-PPO and 0.31 for PBT. welding surface, thereby increasing alignment accuracy in
Recently, the authors [9] studied the fatigue behaviour of the thickness dimension during welding. Two plates with
unreinforced semi-crystalline nylon 6 and nylon 66 vibra- the milled edges in contact were then clamped in a fixture
tion-welded under high and low pressure conditions. It mounted on a Branson Mini II Linear Vibration Welder
was observed that the ratio of endurance limit stress to (details of the fixture can be found in [6]). The top plate
the tensile strength was approximately 0.3 for fatigue was then oscillated with respect to the stationary bottom
cycling at R = 0.1. In a study by the authors [10], and a plate by a spring-mass system at a 212 Hz frequency with
study by Wyzgoski et al. [11] on the fatigue properties of a peak-to-peak amplitude of 1.8 mm. When the meltdown
unwelded short glass fibre-reinforced nylon 66, the ratio reached 1.5 mm, the vibration stopped and the weld solid-
of endurance limit stress to the tensile strength was approx- ified under constant pressure. Throughout the welding pro-
imately 0.5 for fatigue cycling at R = 0.1. Jia and Kagan cess, a constant clamping pressure (within ±10% of the
[12] have reported on the effects of testing temperature on target value) was applied to the plates by a pneumatic cyl-
the fatigue S–N behaviour of unwelded glass-reinforced inder and air pressure regulator. An electronic pressure
nylon 6 and nylon 66. They showed that at room tempera- transducer linked to a data acquisition system monitored
ture (23 C) nylon 66 had slightly better fatigue strength the pressure. Similar to prior work on the static tensile
than nylon 6, but the trend was reversed at lower and properties of vibration-welded nylon by MacDonald [6]
higher temperatures. and Mah [15], weld pressures of 0.8 (low) and 4.0 MPa
Reinforced plastics generally provide higher strength (high) were chosen for this study.
and stiffness than their unreinforced counterparts. Glass
reinforced plastics are economical to produce and the addi-
tion of glass fibres in moderate quantities does not greatly
increase the density of the material. This study examines
the fatigue properties of vibration-welded nylon 6 and
nylon 66 reinforced with 30 wt% short glass fibres (nylon
6 GF and nylon 66 GF), under tension–tension loading
at R = 0.1. Non-welded material data are also included
for reference. The results are analyzed using stress-number
of cycles to failure (S–N) curves, and the fatigue mecha-
nisms and the specimen temperature profiles during testing
are examined.
2. Experimental procedures
Fig. 1. Flow direction and predominant glass fibre orientation for plaque.
Nylon 6 (Zytel 73G301 NC010 from DuPont) and
nylon 66 (Zytel 70G30HSL NC010 from DuPont), each
reinforced with 30 wt% short glass fibres, were used in this
research. Prior to moulding, the nylon pellets were dried in
an oven at 80 C for approximately 24 h. An Engel 55 ton
injection moulding machine was used to mould plaques
with dimensions of 100 mm · 100 mm · 3.2 mm.
The glass fibre orientation within injection-moulded
plaques can significantly affect a reinforced material’s
mechanical properties. The fibre orientation is influenced
by the flow of the material during injection moulding Fig. 2. Pre-welding cut for nylon plaques used in butt welds. Dashed line
[5,11,13,14]. It is accepted that the preferential fibre orien- represents axis of cut and shaded surface represents moulded edges.
398 K.Y. Tsang et al. / Composites: Part B 39 (2008) 396–404
The welded specimens were subjected to static tensile adversely affect the fatigue life of the welded joints and
and tension-tension fatigue tests. For the static tensile test, cause scatter in the data. The few that were observed to
the non-welded and welded plaques were machined into exhibit poor alignment were rejected.
rectangular specimens with a gauge cross-section of The specimens were subjected to sinusoidal tension–ten-
3.2 mm · 28 mm, as illustrated in Fig. 3. As can be seen sion fatigue testing at constant amplitude with the ratio of
in Fig. 3, the axis for the tensile specimens is perpendicular minimum stress to maximum stress, R = 0.1. Only stress
to the polymer flow direction and fibre orientation. For the levels below the measured tensile strength were examined.
welded specimens, the flash is maintained intact (Fig. 3). Three trials were conducted at each stress level. The endur-
To minimize stress concentrations on the edge of machined ance limit stress was defined as the maximum stress at
specimens, a numerically controlled milling machine was which two specimens endured at least 5 · 106 cycles with-
used to produce the specimens with a smooth finish on out failure. Note that the stress-life curves are not flat at
all edges. Following the ASTM D638 standard, the speci- this point and the fatigue limit, which is the stress below
mens were tested at a constant displacement rate of which fatigue failure is not expected, is near but has not
5 mm/minute until fracture. At least four trials were con- yet been achieved. The test frequencies used for the speci-
ducted for each material and weld condition to determine mens were based on trial and error. For example, at stress
the standard deviation of the stress at fracture. levels that were close to the tensile strength of the material,
Similar procedures were used to manufacture the dog- 3 Hz was used. If the specimen did not undergo thermal
bone fatigue specimens. The only difference was that the fatigue, then a higher frequency was used. On the other
fatigue specimens had a gauge length of 50.8 mm and a hand, if the specimen did show signs of thermal fatigue,
cross-section of 19.0 mm by 3.2 mm, as shown in Fig. 4. then the data were discarded and the test was repeated at
Each specimen was examined closely to ensure excellent a lower frequency. The same frequency was used for all
alignment in the joints because misalignment could cause specimens at each stress level to eliminate additional vari-
stress-concentrations or ‘‘notch effects’’ that would ables. For welded specimens, the test frequency ranged
from 5 to 10 Hz, while for non-welded specimens the fre-
quency ranged from 3 to 10 Hz. The maximum cyclic load
frequency of 10 Hz was chosen to avoid thermal fatigue.
Nylons are known to be hygroscopic polymers. All
properties are affected by moisture level. In this study,
the fatigue tests were performed in the dry as moulded
(DAM) condition. To maintain DAM condition, all speci-
mens were stored in aluminum-lined bags prior to use.
During fatigue testing, each specimen was bagged with
dry desiccant and sealed in plastic wrap surrounding the
gauge section. As an added control, the temperature of
the weld was monitored during testing by placing a thermo-
couple near the weld zone inside the desiccant wrap. Sharp
increases in temperature would indicate heating by mois-
ture-induced viscous heating of the nylon materials.
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of tensile specimen. Arrows indicated the
Finally, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used
direction of polymer flow. to examine the fatigue fracture surfaces to help identify
the fatigue mechanisms operative in these glass reinforced
polymers.
Fig. 5. Tensile strength for butt welds of nylon 6 and 66 reinforced with Fig. 6. S–N curves at R = 0.1 for glass fibre reinforced nylon 6 with weld
30 wt% glass fibres welded at 0.8 MPa (LP) and 4.0 MPa (HP) and non- pressure of 0.8 MPa (LP), 4.0 MPa (HP) and non-welded (arrows indicate
welded (NW). Shown with error bars representing ± one standard unbroken specimens). The shaded area represents the transition range.
deviation.
Table 1
Fatigue S–N curve data for glass fibres reinforced nylon 6 and 66 welded at low and high welding pressure
Material Welding pressure Coefficient A Exponent Endurance limit (MPa) Transition range R2
(MPa) (MPa) b based on 5 · 106 cycles (cycles)
Nylon 6 w GF 0.8 (low) 198 0.118 30 100–1000 0.87
Nylon 6 w GF 4.0 (high) 98 0.071 30 100–1000 0.93
Nylon 6 w GF Non-welded 163 0.081 50 N/A 0.96
Nylon 66 w GF 0.8 (low) 98 0.071 30 100–1000 0.93
Nylon 66 w GF 4.0 (high) 98 0.071 30 100–1000 0.93
Nylon 66 w GF Non-welded 162 0.060 60 N/A 0.97
From Figs. 6 and 7, the S–N curves are linear and par- line during vibration welding which are ideal sites for
allel to each other in the low cycle fatigue region (1–100 crack-initiation. With the presence of notches, the number
cycles). Beyond 1000 cycles, in the high cycle fatigue of loading cycles needed for crack initiation is decreased
region, the maximum stress decreases with number of and the total fatigue life is dominated by crack propagation
cycles for all conditions. The transition point between high [8].
and low cycles lies within the range of 100–1000 cycles for Weld details introduce stress concentrations into speci-
both materials. The transition range (1000–10 000 cycles) mens and components and are typically the weak spots
for unreinforced nylon observed in a prior study [9] is an especially in fatigue loading. The reduction in fatigue
order of magnitude larger than for the reinforced nylons. strength due to a stress concentration is determined by
This may be due to the formation of microcracks at the comparing the fatigue strength of the unwelded material
ends of glass fibres that are often observed in the matrix to that of the welded one. The fatigue notch factor, Kf, is
of reinforced plastics [17,18]. The occurrence of these the ratio of the fatigue strength of the unwelded material
microcracks accelerates the crack initiation process, and to that of a welded specimen at a given fatigue life. It is
may cause a shift in the transition range to a lower number a combination of material and geometry effects and gener-
of cycles. ally increases for most materials as a function of life up to
the fatigue limit. In this study, fatigue notch factors were
5. Effect of vibration welding calculated for the vibration welded specimens in the long
life region (105 cycles) and at the endurance limit (5 · 106
Important trends were observed in the data presented in cycles). The magnitude of Kf was 1.2 and 1.6 for reinforced
the S–N curves of Figs. 6 and 7. As expected, they show nylon 6 welded at low and high pressures, respectively, at
that the fatigue lives of the non-welded specimens were 105 cycles and 1.5 for both weld pressure at 5 · 106 cycles.
longer compared with the welded specimens, i.e., welding For nylon 66 reinforced with glass fibres, Kf was 1.7 and
reduces fatigue life. For reinforced nylon 6, at a stress level 1.9 for low and high pressures, respectively, at 105 cycles
of 60 MPa, the fatigue life of the non-welded specimens and 2.0 for both weld pressures at 5 · 106 cycles. Two
was at least one order of magnitude longer than welded trends were seen. As the stress decreased, Kf increased;
ones. Similarly for nylon 66 at a stress level of 70 MPa, and as the static strength of the material increases, the Kf
the fatigue life of the non-welded specimens is three orders value also increased.
of magnitude longer than the welded specimens. Moreover,
the endurance limit for non-welded reinforced nylon 66
(60 MPa) was comparable to the tensile strength of the 6. Effect of weld pressure
reinforced nylon 66 welded at high pressure (61 MPa). This
is consistent with the short–term properties of nylon where From Fig. 6 for the welded reinforced nylon 6, it was
the non-welded specimens have higher static tensile observed that weld pressure had an effect on fatigue life
strength than the welded ones. The ‘‘strength-life equal especially in the low cycle region. At stress levels of 60
rank assumption’’ [19,20], which proposes that a material and 50 MPa, the fatigue life of reinforced nylon 6 welded
with greater tensile strength will have longer fatigue life, at low pressure was an order of magnitude greater than
appears to be valid. This trend is consistent with the fatigue for nylon 6 welded at high pressure. At the stress level of
behaviour of unreinforced nylons observed by the authors 40 MPa, the fatigue life of specimens welded at low pres-
[9]. sure was 50% greater than that of specimens welded at high
The reduced fatigue lives of the welded specimens were pressure. This is also consistent with the findings on the
probably caused in part by the glass fibre orientation at tensile strength of the welded specimens in this study and
the weld as mentioned earlier in the tensile test results, with the ‘‘strength-life equal rank assumption’’.
where the fibres were aligned parallel to the weld plane For glass fibre-reinforced nylon 66 (at the 95% confi-
and offered little reinforcement, when stress was applied dence level), weld pressure did not have a significant effect
normal to this interface [6,15]. Another cause could be on fatigue life especially in the high cycle region. This trend
the stress concentrations, or notches, created at the weld was also observed in unreinforced nylon 66 [9]. As shown
K.Y. Tsang et al. / Composites: Part B 39 (2008) 396–404 401
in Fig. 7, beyond 104 cycles the S–N curves for low and
high pressure welds converged.
According to Stokes [2], there is an inverse relationship
between the weld pressure and the melt film thickness. It is
believed that a thick melt film increases the probability of
the glass fibres reorienting themselves towards being per-
pendicular to the weld line [6,21–23]. As a consequence,
the tensile strength is increased, and according to the
‘‘strength-life equal rank assumption’’, the fatigue lives of
the specimens are improved, when the weld pressure is
decreased. This theory is supported by evidence observed
on the fatigue fracture surface under the SEM as shown
in Fig. 8a and b.
Fig. 8 shows the fracture surfaces of reinforced nylon 6
specimens welded at low and high pressures. The low weld
pressure condition shows more fibres orientated perpendic-
ular to the weld plane, which may have increased the weld
strength and resulted in a longer fatigue life. This is consis-
tent with the fracture surface observed in previous studies
[6,15].
Fig. 9a and b show the fatigue fracture surfaces of rein-
forced nylon 66 specimens welded at low and high pres-
sures. The glass fibres are positioned parallel to the weld
plane with the same (transverse to the load) orientation
Table 2
re/ru Ratio for non-welded and welded unreinforced and 30 wt% glass
fibre reinforced nylon 6 and 66 welded at low and high pressure
Material Pressure (MPa) re/ru
Nylon 6 w GF Non-welded 0.48
Nylon 6 w GF 0.8 (low) 0.33
Nylon 6 w GF 4.0 (high) 0.42
Nylon 66 w GF Non-welded 0.52
Nylon 66 w GF 0.8 (low) 0.39
Nylon 66 w GF 4.0 (high) 0.49
Nylon 6 [9] Non-welded 0.42
Nylon 6 [9] 0.8 (low) 0.32
Nylon 6 [9] 4.0 (high) 0.29
Nylon 66 [9] Non-welded 0.36
Nylon 66 [9] 0.8 (low) 0.27
Nylon 66 [9] 4.0 (high) 0.27
Fig. 10. S–N curves at R = 0.1 for nylon 6 compounds with weld pressure
of 0.8 MPa (arrows indicate unbroken specimens).
can be related to the tensile strength, this can reduce the
amount of effort required to estimate the material endur-
ance limit. The ratio of endurance limit stress to tensile
strength (re/ru) is called the fatigue endurance ratio. The
results for the nylon 6 and 66 specimens examined are pre-
sented in Table 2.
From Table 2, the lowest observed fatigue endurance
ratio for glass fibre reinforced vibration-welded nylon spec-
imens is 0.33. The average value for all the welded rein-
forced nylons is 0.40. Hence, the following rule of thumb
is conservatively suggested: the fatigue limit stress at
R = 0.1 can be estimated as 0.33 of the tensile strength
for the vibration-welded reinforced nylons. Similar to the
tensile and fatigue data, the re/ru ratios for the unwelded
specimens are superior to the welded ones.
Fig. 11. S–N curves at R = 0.1 for nylon 66 compounds with weld From a study performed by Stokes [8], the re/ru ratio
pressure of 0.8 MPa (arrows indicate unbroken specimens). of unreinforced vibration-welded polycarbonate (PC),
poly(butylenes terephtalate) (PBT), polyetherimide (PEI)
by an order of magnitude and nylon 66 has a higher and modified polyphenylene oxide resin (M-PPO) welded
endurance limit. The glass fibres may not play an effective at 120 Hz and tested at 10 Hz with R = 0.1 is of the order
role in the low cycle fatigue region, and only become sig- of 0.3 and they all failed away from the welds. In a prior
nificant in the high cycle fatigue region (>50 000 cycles) study on unreinforced nylon 6 and nylon 66 [9], the authors
for nylon 66. One possible reason for this phenomenon found the re/ru ratio to be 0.3 under the same loading
is the glass fibre orientation at the weld. Compared to conditions. Therefore, the re/ru ratio observed for the
nylon 6, the fibres in nylon 66 may be more oriented in vibration-welded reinforced nylons with low and high weld
the plane of the weld (this is indeed observed and dis- pressures was near the re/ru ratios observed for various
cussed in the fracture surface section of this paper). butt-welded thermoplastics under similar testing conditions.
Under higher stresses, and in spite of the presence of glass Rules of thumb for endurance ratios are well known for
fibres, the strain at the weld exceeds the elongation at other fatigue conditions in metals. At R = 1, steel and
break of this poorly oriented composite material and fail- aluminium typically have a re/ru ratio of 0.5 and 0.3,
ure quickly occurs. Under lower stresses, the rigidity of respectively, [24]. This ratio is known to decrease with
the composite material at the weld interface lowers the increasing R ratio and the presence of welds. When the R
strain relative to that experienced in unreinforced mate- ratio is increased to 0.1, the re/ru ratio is reduced to about
rial, and therefore reduces the rate of crack growth. The 0.33 and 0.2 for steel and aluminum alloys, respectively.
fatigue properties of the reinforced material are thus Nylon 6 and nylon 66 with 30 wt% glass fibres have a
improved in the lower stress region. re/ru ratio similar to that of unwelded steels.
Fatigue tests can be extremely time consuming; tensile Fig. 12 shows the maximum temperatures that were
tests are much less so. If the endurance limit of the material recorded for the welded reinforced nylon specimens.
K.Y. Tsang et al. / Composites: Part B 39 (2008) 396–404 403
Fig. 13. Temperature profile for nylon 6 reinforced with glass fibres
welded at low pressure at various stress levels.
Fig. 15. SEM micrographs showing the thumbnails of: (a) nylon 6 with
Fig. 14. Temperature profile for nylon 66 reinforced with glass fibres 30% GF welded at low weld pressure and tested at 50 MPa and (b) nylon
welded at low pressure at various stress levels. 66 with 30% GF welded at low weld pressure and tested at 35 MPa.
404 K.Y. Tsang et al. / Composites: Part B 39 (2008) 396–404
References