Due to rising demands regarding for light weight design, nowadays metal parts especially in the automotive industry are often superseded by parts made of short glass fibre reinforced (sgfr) plastics. Their high specific strength, formability and good process ability allow the adaptability for many requirements. To use the light weight potential and shortening development time, an improved knowledge about the fatigue behaviour of these materials is essential. As shown in [1], the concept of local S/N-curves is well applicable for these group of materials.
The material behaviour of sgfr plastics is manly effected by the fibre orientation. Furthermore influences caused by environmental conditions like temperature, moisture absorption and ambient media etc. have to taken into account. Validation on complex shaped components show a good correlation between experimental and simulation results.