The goal of a failure analysis is to identify the mechanism and cause of the component failure - to distinguish how and why the part broke. A fractographic examination is an essential part of this investigation, particularly in identifying the failure mode. Cracking occurs as a stress relief mechanism as a response to the exertion of stresses on a component.

Glass fiber-reinforced plastics offer enhanced mechanical properties, particularly strength and stiffness over unfilled materials. Their use is widespread in a wide variety of applications where mechanical integrity is essential. However, fractographic evaluation of these materials often presents a challenge due to the confounding effect of the fibers.

The fibers can obscure the fracture surface features arising from:

• Type of material and formulation constituents;
• Type of applied forces (tensile, compression, shear);
• Magnitude of forces;
• Frequency of forces (continuous, intermittent, rapidly applied);
• Environmental effects (temperature, presence of chemical).

This presentation will explore the challenges unique to glass fiber-reinforced materials and techniques that can be used to gain the maximum information from these fracture surfaces.