'Tail' phenomenon and fatigue crack propagation of PC/ABS alloy

Abstract The fatigue crack propagation (FCP) behavior of the alloy of polycarbonate (PC) and acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (PC/ABS) is experimentally investigated in this paper. An improved compliance method is employed to measure the fatigue crack length and optical and scanning electron microscopes (SEM) are used to observe the features of crack tip deformation in situ . ‘Tail’ phenomenon has been observed at the initial stage of fatigue for each specimen, which is regarded as a reflection of the transition process of accumulation of damage and plastic deformation during FCP. The law of FCP from low to high crack growth rate (10 −6 –10 −3  mm/cycle) is obtained and described with Paris law. Porous or dimple features govern the fatigue crack surfaces and coarse features have been seen on the crack surfaces with higher crack growth rate, while smooth features have been observed on the crack surfaces with lower crack growth rate. A stretched band appears when the crack growth transforms from lower to higher region of FCP rate.