Static strength assessment of short glass fibre-reinforced polyphenilenesulphide in presence of notches according to different approaches

In this paper the static behaviour of polyphenylenesulfide reinforced by 40% wt. short glass fibre net-shaped plain and notched specimens was investigated. The specimen geometries were obtained by injection moulding and the experimental results were compared with data obtained from machined specimens with the same material and geometries. All data were reanalysed according to several models available in the literature for orthotropic materials, to find a rapid and efficient assessment tool for predicting the strength of short glass fibre reinforced materials in the early design stages. To this end, approaches based on orthotropic linear elastic stress analysis were considered, namely the linear elastic peak stress criterion, the nominal net-stress criterion, the point stress criterion, the average stress criterion, the strain energy density criterion, the generalized stress intensity factor-based approach, the inherent flaw model, the damaged zone criterion and the Hitchen criterion. Among the models, the average stress criterion and the generalized stress intensity factor-based approach provided the most accurate predictions of the static strength, ranging from −10% to +9% and from −19% to +2%, respectively, compared to the experimental data.