Fatigue of Fabrics

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Abstract
The effect of temperature and time of application of load on the growth and the apparent ``tensile strength'' of fabrics was studied with a number of new tests. The results gave considerable information about the mechanism of failure of mechanical fabrics at low loads in service which could not be obtained with standard textile tests. A ``fatigue'' test was developed which measured the lives of samples at elevated temperatures when subjected to a constant average load and a superimposed cyclic stress. The change in life with temperature on this test is enormously greater than the change of tensile strength with temperature. Over a considerable range the logarithm of the life under a given load is a linear function of the reciprocal of the absolute temperature, showing that the failure depends on a viscous or plastic flow within the fibers. Calculated activation energies for this flow process increase for different fibers in the order rayon, cotton, Nylon. The construction of the fabric affects the absolute life, but not the calculated activation energy. When creep is negligible, a loaded cord contracts when the temperature is raised, analogous to the Joule effect in rubber.