The results obtained in this doctoral thesis suggest the need to complete the investigation carried out in some issues and to deepen the study in others. The proposed topics for future work are detailed below.
▪ To complete the experimental program to dispose a larger number of data specially for physically short crack regime.
▪ To deepen in the experimental methodology more adequate for the determination of the fatigue limit and long crack thresholds.
▪ To study the effect of stress ratio and the frequency on the diagrams of fatigue of polymers, taking into account thermal damage and viscoelasticity.
▪ To research the effect of the microstructural features (degree of crystallinity, spherulite size, skin-layer) on the fatigue parameters as the threshold values, the lifetime fatigue curves or the Paris law region.
▪ To analyse the physical meaning of the characteristic lengths and search relationships with the microstructural features or the damage process zone.
▪ To extend the analysis of design against fatigue to notched polymeric samples, using the Aztori-Lazzarin diagrams as a generalisation of the Kitagawa-Takahashi approach.