Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
DOI 10.1007/s11012-008-9133-7
Statistical analysis of HDPE fatigue lifetime
Rabia Khelif · Alaa Chateauneuf · Kamel Chaoui
Received: 29 June 2007 / Accepted: 23 January 2008 / Published online: 3 April 2008
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract Fatigue lifetime of HDPE structures such as
pipes is recognized to show a large scatter. This study
aims to compare different statistical methods and dis-
tributions, in order to give convenient modeling of ten-
sile and fatigue test results of commercially available
polyethylene compression molded sheets. The median
rank, the maximum likelihood and the Kolmogorov-
Smirnov fitting are compared for the estimation of
Weibull parameters. The choice of the best distribu-
tion to fit fatigue lifetime is discussed on the basis of
the goodness-of-fit results. It is found that whether the
three-parameter distributions of Weibull and lognor-
mal types are suitable for lifetime prediction, the two-
parameter Weibull is more conservative for probabilis-
tic fatigue design.
R. Khelif ()
LaMI—UBP & IFMA, Campus de Clermont-Ferrand,
BP 265, 63175, Aubière Cedex, France
e-mail: rabia.khelif@ifma.fr
R. Khelif
e-mail: r_khelif@yahoo.fr
R. Khelif · K. Chaoui
LR3MI, Mechanical Engineering Dept., Badji Mokhtar
University, BP 12, Annaba 23000, Algeria
A. Chateauneuf
LGC—UBP, Complexe Universitaire des Cézeaux,
BP 206, 63174 Aubière Cedex, France
Keywords Polyethylene · Fatigue · Data scatter ·
Tensile strength · Lifetime distribution
1 Introduction
Polyethylene pipes are extensively used for the trans-
portation and distribution of natural gas, with over
90% of the new piping installations using High Den-
sity Polyethylene (HDPE). One striking example
that highlights the importance of controlling HDPE
strength can be found in the aftermath investigations of
the Kobe earthquake in 1995 during which many fires
and explosions from damaged gas pipelines caused
considerable damage to life and properties [1].
However, there are few indications on HDPE pipe
fatigue resistance especially under extreme service
conditions. In addition to internal and external pres-
sures, the HDPE gas pipelines are subjected to dete-
rioration processes such as creep, fatigue damage and
crack growth. In spite of the apparently simple struc-
ture, the pipe analysis leads to very specific working
conditions: (i) The pipes often work under cyclic load-
ing (fluctuations in internal pressure) with a significant
stress ratio; (ii) The pipes accumulate a high amount of
energy in the fluid under pressure, which is to say in
the form of elastic strain energy. This stored energy
allows for initiation and development of tube crack
growth over important lengths in different ways: brit-
tle, semi-brittle and ductile failures; and (iii) The pipes
568
present high probability of occurrence of defects in
particular by their manufacturing process and assem-
bly techniques.
One of the most dangerous ruptures that a pipe may
undergo is the “stress cracking”. In practice, poly-
ethylene pipes do not support static loading exclu-
sively, but they are also subjected to periodic and
cyclic actions of constant, random or intermittent fre-
quencies, sometimes combined with creep. Hence, fa-
tigue strength must be taken into account in any design
approach.
In general, fatigue can be defined as a phenomenon
that takes place in components and structures sub-
jected to time-varying external loading and that man-
ifests itself in the deterioration of the material ability
to carry an applied load that is well below the elastic
limit. Today, the fatigue phenomenon is known to orig-
inate in the local damage of the material or, in other
words, in the sliding of atomic layers. As indicated by
experimental observations, at low stress levels (high-
cycle fatigue), the crack initiation period may con-
sume a significant percentage of the usable fatigue life,
whereas at high stress amplitude (low-cycle fatigue),
fatigue cracks start to develop in the early cycles
[2–4].
Plastic pipes used for gas and water distribution
are continuing to be the subject of many studies that
highlight various behavior aspects in terms of service
lifetime [5]. In order to allow for engineering design
and lifetime prediction, many tests of long-term be-
havior such as fatigue, creep and environmental stress
cracking (ESC) are reported although this information
is still not sufficiently developed in the literature. The
aim of dynamic fatigue tests is to quantitatively define
the endurance limit of polyethylene resins subjected
to periodic loading; the endurance limit is defined as
the maximum amplitude which can be supported for
an infinite number of cycles without apparent rupture.
Long-term testing methods differ mainly according to
the type, the nature and the loading scheme.
To describe the fatigue strength, Wöhler curves are
the most common model for practical use and design.
The log-scale leads to a straight line between the stress
amplitude and the number of cycles to failure. When
crack is initiated, the analysis of crack growth history
shows that there is a log-linear relationship between
the apparent crack size and the lifetime. Also, there is
a linear relationship between the crack growth rate and
the crack length or the stress intensity factor range in
mode I (KI ) when plotted in a log–log scale.
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
In the literature, many works have been undertaken
on fatigue crack growth. Accelerated fatigue tests
were performed on circumferentially notched HDPE
bars [6–8]. Kasakevich et al. [9] presented a compar-
ative study on crack propagation in HDPE under fa-
tigue and creep loading conditions. This analysis is
focused on the interaction between creep and fatigue
and discusses the validity of fatigue as an accelerated
laboratory test for long-term field failure under creep
conditions.
The correlation between creep and fatigue
strengths, undertaken by Parsons et al. [10], showed
that MDPE was much more creep resistant than
HDPE, but MDPE pipes was much more sensitive to
strain rate in fatigue. The mechanisms of failure of
externally notched sections of polyethylene pipe un-
der pressure have been investigated by Reynolds et
al. [11], who confirmed that the origin of branching
fracture features lies in the localized shear deforma-
tion.
An experimental investigation was designed by Ki-
ass et al. [12] to establish the distribution of mechan-
ical properties throughout a HDPE gas pipe wall. The
variability of mechanical properties within the pipe
wall revealed the complexity of hierarchical structure
in HDPE and such an approach is intended to con-
tribute in understanding pipe long-term behavior and
associated brittle failure.
Unfortunately, the large majority of HDPE fatigue
studies concerns the crack propagation, which as-
sumes that stress concentration and crack already ex-
ists. However, in most of pipeline parts, fatigue may
occur without any previously formed crack. In this
case, fatigue produces accumulated material damage,
which latterly leads either to crack nucleation or to
large deformation, depending on the stress levels. In
fact, the total lifetime is the sum of both damage and
propagation stages; in many cases the fatigue dam-
age represents more than 90% of the overall fatigue
lifetime. For moderate and low stress variations, the
damage time is much larger than the crack propaga-
tion time. That is why, it is very important to consider
fatigue of uncracked specimens. Due to strong ran-
domness of the fatigue behavior, the statistical char-
acterization of fatigue lifetime is an important issue in
the literature, where the final goal concerns structural
safety problems. The analysis of fatigue data aims to
determine the best statistical distribution and parame-
ters of the relevant variables, allowing to better fit the
experimental observations.
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576 569

The most well-known and popular distribution is Table 1 Physical and mechanical properties of HDPE
the 3-parameter Weibull distribution function. Several Property Value
works have been carried out to characterize the life-
time distribution for metal structures, especially steel Density (kg/m3 ) 950
and aluminum. Schijve [4] compared three distribu- Water absorption (24 h basis) <0.01%
tion functions for metal fatigue structures, with atten- Thermal expansion factor (106 K−1 ) 100–200
tion to very low failure probabilities. He discussed Poisson’s ratio 0.46
the different practical problems for which statistics Friction factor 0.29
are important and the necessity to perform full-scale Rockwelll hardness (shore) D 60–73
service-simulation tests for realistic prediction. Tobias Elastic modulus (GPa) 0.5–1.2
et al. [13] proposed the use of the Maximum Likeli- Impact resistance, IZOD (J/m) 20–210
hood Method and a Bayesian analysis for the Weibull Yield stress (MPa) 15–40
parameters and the corresponding confidence interval.
Wu et al. [14] discussed the scatter of fatigue crack
growth for aluminum alloys, on the basis of new tests Table 2 Normalized specimen dimensions
confirming that material inhomogeneity is the origin Designation Dimension (mm)
of randomness. Unfortunately, no equivalent works are
actually available for HDPE fatigue statistical distrib- Width at the ends, w0 10
utions. Testing width, w 4 or 5
In this paper, a statistical study is carried out on fa- Thickness, B 5
tigue lifetime of HDPE, where different probabilistic Small radius, R 14
distribution models have been compared. The speci- Large radius, R0 25
men manufacturing scatter is also considered in the Length of the gauged part, L 30
test procedure. After characterizing the material ten- Initial free distance, D 58
sile strength, the fatigue tests are performed in order Overall specimen length, L0 115
to define the probabilistic S-N curves for HDPE. The References length G 25
statistical analysis allows us to determine the lifetime
distribution type and parameter to be used for safe de-
sign of systems.

2 Polyethylene specimens

The machining of test specimens is carried out from

300 × 300 × 5 mm sheets, purchased from Goodfellow
Co. of Lille (France), with the nominal characteristics
indicated in Table 1. It should be noted that the max-
imum operating temperature for this resin is between
55 and 120 °C. The temperature of deflection to heat
is 75 °C for 0.4 MPa and 46 °C for 1.8 MPa.
The geometry of test specimens is drawn from the
Standard NF IN ISO 527 (type 1BA), as indicated
in Fig. 1, with the dimensions given in Table 2. The
milling process is used for specimen machining, where
special care has been considered regarding the visco-
plastic behavior of such a material. During machining,
it is necessary to reduce the maximum warping, which
has been produced by cutting out a series of strips of
27 mm wide. The manufacturing unit is a three-axes
Fig. 1 Specimen shape according to ISO 527
machining center of HURON type, allowing us to cut
the specimens in the plane (x-y) with a feed rate of
0.2 mm/rotation and a cutting speed of 60 m/min.
3 Fatigue testing
The MTS 858 Elastomer Test System, shown in Fig. 2,
has been used for fatigue testing, where the loading
is applied by hydraulic actuators. It allows us to per-
form fatigue tests in the range ±15 kN with frequen-
cies up to 200 Hz. In order to describe the whole S-N
570
Fig. 2 Fatigue testing machine
curve, 42 specimens have been prepared to be tested
under 6 stress levels, each with 7 tests. The HDPE
fatigue life is characterized by applying a sinusoidal
loading of frequency 5 Hz with the load ratio R = 0.1.
Knowing that the HDPE elongation at rupture lies be-
tween 500% and 1000%, the tests are carried out for
an elongation over 200% of the specimens. Having
the ultimate strength determined by static testing (i.e.
33 MPa), it is possible to determine the force range
to be applied for fatigue tests. It has been chosen to
apply first a maximum force of 600 N (corresponding
to a nominal stress of 24 MPa for a 25 mm2 of cross-
sectional area, corresponding to 72% of the ultimate
strength), then to decrease it gradually.
As we could not automatically stop the testing at
a given elongation under load control, the tests are
stopped when the machine elongation span is reached.
In practice, most of the specimens did not break at the
end of the test; therefore, the number of cycles is de-
termined for the same elongation for all specimens, in
order to compare data with the same strain levels. Even
if the specimen did not break at the specified deforma-
tion, the remaining lifetime is not useful for practical
use.
4 Results and discussion
Fatigue tests are now performed for six loading lev-
els: 300, 400, 450, 500, 550 and 600 N. At each level,
seven specimens have been tested. That makes 42
specimens of nominal thickness of 5 mm. The use of
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
Fig. 3 Typical tested specimens for 550 N and 600 N
a test frequency less of equal to 5 Hz ensures that hys-
terical heating of polyethylene is low and thus, there is
very little influence on the obtained lifetime.
Figure 3 shows typical deformations undergone by
the specimens. For high load amplitudes (more than
500 N), the specimens break while for lower ampli-
tudes, they undergo large strains without rupture; this
could be explained by higher capacity for molecular
chain reorganization under low and moderate strain
cycles.
Table 3 gives the test results in terms of number of
cycles at the specified elongation (defined as 200%);
the data are censured at 1 million of cycles and the
nominal stress is computed on the basis of the average
cross-sectional width for each loading level. It is ob-
served that the average curve presents the traditional
form for thermoplastics. For example, at the load level
of 400 N, the number of cycles of 52105 corresponds
to an elongation of 60 mm that is to say about 200% of
the useful length. The elongation of 100% (i.e. 30 mm)
is reached at 46710 cycles; the difference in lifetime
is about 10%. Contrary to steel, there is no horizon-
tal asymptote to define the endurance limit σD . Even
beyond 106 cycles, the curve presents a small slope,
which is not surprising for thermoplastics.
The results of the statistical distribution of the 210
measured widths show a mean width of 5.432 mm and
a standard deviation of 0.208 mm; i.e. the coefficient
of variation is 3.8%, which is conformal to practical
manufacturing tolerances. As the fatigue lifetime is
governed by the minimum width, the corresponding
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576 571
Table 3 Basic statistical parameters calculated starting from the 6 applied loads levels

Load (N) Stress (MPa) N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N6 N7 Mean Std dev. COV

600 22.09 1433 3434 1968 289 3245 2022 1294 1955 1106 0.566
550 20.25 4771 3595 1667 2087 3832 2999 1428 2911 1239 0.426
500 18.41 11661 6829 10776 16321 14253 13906 4725 11210 4169 0.372
450 16.57 15743 50931 43715 84613 11667 22028 24954 36236 25707 0.709
400 14.73 52108 36287 35236 77527 43463 84991 41189 52972 20212 0.382
300 11.05 1000000 422484 475897 1000000 305815 201394 1000000 629370 357376 0.568

Fig. 4 Fatigue results and S-N curves

distribution leads to a mean value of 5.225 mm with a
standard deviation of 0.109 mm (i.e. 2% of coefficient
of variation); it can be seen that the specified width of
5 mm is satisfied as a minimum value for all speci-
mens. It is noted that the nominal stresses mentioned
in Table 3 correspond to the mean value of the speci-
men width.
The coefficients of variation ranges from 37% to
71%, illustrating the very large scatter of fatigue re-
sults, contrary to static tensile tests. The scatter of the
fatigue results is accepted today as an integrated phys-
ical aspect of the phenomenon, whose origins depend
on [15]:
– Material morphology (inclusions, structure hetero-
geneity, residual stresses, etc.);
– Specimen integrity (differences in surface quality,
dimensional tolerances, etc.);
– Testing conditions (specimen alignment on the ma-
chine, adjustment of load and frequency, specimen
heating, environment effects, etc.).
Figure 4 shows the test points in the S-N space. In the
log-scale, the data fitting is carried out for linear and
power functions, where the solutions are given by:
S = 35.6 − 1.85 ln(N ) (1)
or
N S 8.6 = 6.7 × 1014 . (2)
As the number of tests is limited for each load level,
classical parameter estimates are not well adapted, as
they are valid only for large sample size. For this rea-
son, a complementary analysis is carried out to check
the robustness of the parameter estimates as well as
the confidence intervals at the level of 95%. Moreover,
572 Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
Table 4 Parameter estimates and confidence intervals by three different methods

400 450 500 550 600

Classical 52972 36236 11210 2911 1955

Std Deviation 7639 9716 1576 468 418
Conf. Interval 37998; 67944 17193; 55279 8122; 14299 1993; 3829 1136; 2774

Resample 52820 36284 11200 2913 1950

Std Error 7635 9767 1576 472 419
Conf. Interval 39321; 68857 19415; 56626 8017; 14070 2009; 3862 1141; 2793

Bootstrap 52964 36227 11208 2908 1959

Std Error 7068 8988 1458 429 388
Conf. Interval 39111; 66818 18610; 53843 8351; 14065 2068; 3748 1198; 2720

Fig. 5 Resampling and Bootstrap distributions for the lifetime at loading level of 600 N

the statistical analysis should take into consideration
the censored data at the loading level of 300 N, which
is carried out in this study on the basis of Bayesian
likelihood function. Two methods are applied to take
account for small sample estimates: the resampling
technique consisting of re-evaluating the estimates by
removing randomly one (or more) experiment(s) and
the Bootstrap method where a virtual distribution of
10000 samples is generated from the initial sample by
using the resampling technique. The Bootstrap tech-
nique has shown to give the narrowest confidence in-
tervals for the given data. Moreover, the standard error
in this technique is lower than in the other methods.
Table 4 shows the obtained mean and standard devia-
tion, as well as the confidence intervals for the differ-
ent loading levels. The confidence intervals are glob-
ally narrower for the Bootstrap method. At the loading
level of 600 N (i.e. 22.09 MPa), the comparison be-
tween Resampling and Bootstrap distributions, illus-
trated in Fig. 5, shows that the Bootstrap method gives
more regular lifetime distribution.
For reliability-based design purposes, it is neces-
sary to define an appropriate probabilistic distribu-
tion for fatigue lifetime. Usually, Weibull and lognor-
mal distributions are proposed in the literature, but the
choice of appropriate distribution is far from being an
easy task. Three methods have been compared: linear
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576 573
Table 5 Weibull parameter estimates by linear fitting

Load (N) 300 400 450 500 550 600

Stress (MPa) 10.04 11.32 14.30 15.58 18.56 22.75

β 1.600 2.732 1.496 2.354 2.312 1.228

η 733819 60270 41304 12900 3332 2378

Table 6 Maximum likelihood estimates for Weibull distributions

Load (N) 300 400 450 500 550 600

Stress (MPa) 10.04 11.32 14.30 15.58 18.56 22.75

β 1.400 2.774 1.5744 2.0311 2.167 1.0336

η 674110 54255 33 216 12147 3015 2173
K-S test 0.177 0.154 0.100 0.162 0.120 0.201

β 0.794 0.407 0.6786 0.826 0.821 2.5984

η 382050 17381 24623 5228 1700 2747
γ 201390 35236 11667 4725 1428 −481.7
K-S test 0.166 0.213 0.124 0.145 0.175 0.170

fitting on appropriate Weibull paper, Maximum likeli-
hood estimate and Kolmogorov-Smirnov fitting.
Table 5 gives the Weibull distribution parameters
on the basis of the median rank method, allowing to fit
a straight line in appropriate logarithmic scales. The
median rank is computed by:
ri − 0.3
F̂i = (3)
n + 0.4
where ri is the rank of the number of cycles (Ni ) and n
is the total number of data (i.e. n = 7 in our case). The
points are then plotted as: ln(Ni ) versus ln(ln( 1 )).
1−F̂ i
The fitting of these points leads to the Weibull para-
meters. Whether the parameter η has decreasing evo-
lution, the shape parameter β does not follow a spe-
cific monotonic evolution (it could be considered to be
monotonic decreasing unless for loads 300 and 450 N,
which is due to the large scatter of the fatigue data). It
is noted that the stresses mentioned in Tables 5–7 cor-
respond to the minimum value of the specimen width.
Table 6 indicates the maximum likelihood esti-
mates for two- and three-parameter Weibull distrib-
utions. For the two-parameter Weibull, the estimates
are more or less close to those obtained by the lin-
ear fitting model; the shape parameter β is globally
lower for high loading levels (note that negative shift
parameter cannot have physical interpretation). Con-
trary to what could be expected, for most of the points,
the two-parameter Weibull fits better the Kolmogorov-
Smirnov (K-S) test than the three-parameter distribu-
tion.
In order to search for a better fitting, we have
compared six different distributions (Table 7): Nor-
mal, Lognormal, Three-parameter lognormal, Two-
parameter Weibull and Three-parameter Weibull. Un-
less for normal and lognormal where the estimates
cannot be modified, the parameters of the other distrib-
utions are searched by an iterative procedure allowing
to minimize the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S) val-
ues. In other words, the search is oriented towards the
parameters that give the best fitting of the K-S test.
For two-parameter Weibull, Fig. 6 compares the
distributions obtained by the different approaches, at
loading levels of 450 and 600 N. It seems that the
Median rank approach leads to the longest tail at the
right side; i.e. this method expects much longer life-
times than the other methods. On the other hand,
the Kolmogorov-Smirnov based fitting leads to larger
probability drops for high fatigue lifetimes. The Max-
imum likelihood seems to be between the two other
situations. Concerning the lower distribution tails, the
Maximum likelihood method seems to give more con-
servative results than the other methods, which is very
suitable for design purposes of HDPE structures.
574 Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
Table 7 Kolmogorov-Smirnov test based estimates of six different distributions

Distribution 300 400 450 500 550 600

Weibull (β, η, γ ) 0.8 0.5 0.75 2.2 2.1 1.5

350000 11000 20000 10000 2900 1500
200000 35000 11000 2000 100 500
K-S test 0.144 0.119 0.070 0.110 0.065 0.074

Weibull (β, η) 1.7 2.75 1.4 2.8 2.2 1.8

674000 53000 32000 12000 3000 2000
K-S test 0.146 0.135 0.073 0.099 0.066 0.113

Lognormal (m, σ, N0 ) 13.1 8.4 9.6 9.1 7.7 7.2

0.63 2.0 1.1 0.5 0.55 0.55
37000 35000 8500 1000 200 300
K-S test 0.145 0.137 0.0710 0.141 0.095 0.084

Lognormal (m, σ ) 13.188 10.821 10.289 9.25 7.89 7.36

0.6 0.3291 0.65 0.414 0.42 0.77
K-S test 0.148 0.237 0.172 0.138 0.155 0.156

Normal (m, σ ) 629370 52972 36236 11210 1955 1955

35738 20212 25707 4169 1106 1106
K-S test 0.238 0.252 0.241 0.139 0.176 0.190

Fig. 6 Comparison of different fitting approaches

In Table 7, the distributions are ordered according
to their goodness-of-fit. The three-parameter Weibull
gives globally the best fitting, but the difference
between the first three distributions: two-parameter
Weibull, three-parameter Weibull and three-parameter
lognormal, is not very significant. Alternatively, log-
normal and normal distributions are not convenient for
fitting the fatigue lifetime of HDPE structures; it is to
be noted that classical lognormal distribution is com-
monly used for this issue.
Figure 7 compares the best three distributions
(Weibull with two and three parameters and lognor-
mal with three parameters). Although the right-side
tails are similar, very large differences are observed
for the left-side tails. That is why much care should be
considered when choosing appropriate distribution in
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576 575

Fig. 7 Comparison of different lifetime distributions

Fig. 8 Fatigue lifetime quantiles at 10% for the different models

the reliability-based design and assessment of HDPE It can be observed that the Lognormal and Weibull
structures, especially for pressurized piping systems. with three parameters give almost the same quantile
For design purposes, it is recommended to define curve. The Weibull with two parameters leads to more
the lifetime quantiles at 10%. Figure 8 shows these conservative curve, which could be recommended for
design purposes.
10% fatigue curves for the three models: Lognormal
with two parameters and Weibull with two and three
parameters. The expression of these curves are as fol- 5 Conclusion
lowing:
In this study, a probabilistic characterization of HDPE
Lognormal 3P: N S 8.5 = 2.2 × 1014 , and fatigue lifetime has been carried out. The fatigue
strength shows very large scatter. An expression in the
Weibull 2P: N S 8.5 = 1.6 × 1014 , (4) power type form has led to more appropriate repre-
Weibull 3P: N S 8.6 = 3.2 × 1014 . sentation of fatigue data, compared to linear fitting in
576
the log-scale. The statistical analysis has shown that
fatigue lifetime cannot be suitably modeled by lognor-
mal distribution as usually adopted in the literature.
Two- and three-parameter Weibull distribution, as well
as three-parameter lognormal, can be adequately ap-
plied for probabilistic lifetime characterization. More-
over, the median rank and the maximum likelihood
methods do not lead to the best goodness-of-fit test
results, and hence they should not blindly applied in
practice. According to the 10% quantile fitting, it is
recommended to use the two-parameter Weibull dis-
tribution for design and reliability assessment of ther-
moplastic gas distribution piping systems, as it leads
to more conservative products.
Acknowledgements The authors wish to strongly acknowl-
edge the Franco-Algerian cooperation program (Program BAF)
for financially supporting this PhD work. The experimental
works have been carried out at both LR3MI (Annaba, Algeria)
and LaMI (IFMA, Clermont-Ferrand, France).
References
1. Krishnaswamy RK (2005) Analysis of ductile and brittle
failures from creep rupture testing of high-density poly-
ethylene (HDPE) pipes. Polymer 46(25):11664–11672
2. Pugno N, Ciavarella M, Cornetti P, Carpinteri A (2006)
A generalized Paris’ law for fatigue crack growth. J Mech
Phys Solids 54:1333–1349
3. Molent L, Jones R, Barter S, Pitt S (2006) Recent devel-
opments in fatigue crack growth assessment. Int J Fatigue
28(12):1759–1768
Meccanica (2008) 43: 567–576
4. Schijve J (2005) Statistical distribution functions and fa-
tigue of structures. Int J Fatigue 27:1031–1039
5. Zhou Y, Lu X, Zhou Z, Brown N (1996) The relative in-
fluence of molecular structure on brittle fracture by fatigue
and under constant loads in polyethylene. Polym Eng Sci
36(16):2101–2107
6. Pinter G, Haager M, Balika W, Lang RW (2006) Cyclic
crack growth tests with CRB specimens for the evaluation
of the long-term performance of PE pipe grades. In: Polym
testing
7. Favier V, Giroud T, Strijko E, Hiver JM, G’Sell C,
Hellinckx S, Goldberg A (2002) Slow crack propagation
in polyethylene under fatigue at controlled stress intensity.
Polymer 43:1375–1382
8. Ward AL, Lu X, Brown N (1990) Accelerated test for eval-
uating slow crack growth of polyethylene copolymers in
Igepal and air. Polym Eng Sci 30(18):1175–1179
9. Kasakevich ML, Moet A (1990) Comparative crack layer
analysis of fatigue and creep crack propagation in high den-
sity polyethylene. Polymer 31(3):435–439
10. Parsons M, Stepanov EV, Hiltner A, Baer E (2000) Cor-
relation of fatigue and creep slow crack growth in a
medium density polyethylene pipe material. J Mater Sci
35:2659–2674
11. Reynolds PT, Lawrence CC (1993) Mechanisms of de-
formation on the fatigue polyethylene pipe. J Mater Sci
28(9):2277–2282
12. Kiass N, Khelif R, Boulanouar L, Chaoui K (2005) An
experimental approach to mechanical properties variability
through HDPE pipe wall. J Appl Polym Sci 97:272–281
13. Pfingsten T, Glien K (2006) Statistical analysis of slow
crack growth experiments. J Eur Ceram Soc 26:3061–3065
14. Wu WF, Ni CC (2007) Statistical aspects of some fatigue
crack growth data. Eng Fract Mech 74(18):2952–2963
15. François D (2001) Essais mécaniques et lois de comporte-
ment. Hermes Science, Lague