Augus t 24 - 25 .

Canons burg, PA

Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue using ANSYS

nCode DesignLife

Daniel T. Shaw
 Agenda Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Background

• Approach Taken

• Summary

• Open Discussion
 Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) encompasses a group a failure

mechanisms that can include the combined effect of fluctuating
stresses and high temperature
– fatigue – crack initiation and growth due to fluctuating stresses
– creep rupture – inelastic deformation and damage caused by
simultaneous exposure to stress and high temperature
– oxidation – change in a material’s chemical composition due to
environmental factors

• Combined thermal/stress cycles produce TMF damage

– thermal expansion/contraction induce stress
– material strength decreases with increasing temperature
– material resistance to fatigue damage decreases with increasing
temperature
– materials creep at high temperature
 Fatigue Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Fatigue is the initiation and/or growth of a crack under fluctuating

loading
– progressive damage with each load application
– after multiple load applications, the component seems to get “tired” and
lose strength
• hence the name “fatigue”

σy
Stress

fatigue failures can occur after repeated loadings

even if the stress never exceeds yield

Time

– estimated 90% of all mechanical failures have a fatigue mechanism

 Creep Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Creep is the inelastic deformation and damage due to

combination of high temperature and stress levels

• creep damage is thought to be significant if the temperature

exceeds ½ the melting point (in Kelvin)
 Fatigue/Creep Testing Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Fatigue/creep testing has many limitations

– requires many physical prototypes
• wide data scatter, so many tests are needed
– realistic tests are difficult or impossible to achieve
• difficult to test for 1e6+ cycles of operations
• components may be subjected to multiple loadings
– slow and expensive
• test machines must be used/monitored for days/weeks/months
– fails to deal with over-design
• tests are basically pass/fail
– difficult to handle late changes and design variations
• can delay time to market
 CAE Durability Analysis Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• CAE can be used to assess TMF damage in a virtual environment

– evaluations can be performed at all phases during design process
– can assess cumulative damage caused by multiple loads
– reduces need for and optimizes testing
 ANSYS nCode DesignLife Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• ANSYS nCode DesignLife is a CAE durability software product

developed by HBM nCode
– sold and supported by ANSYS, Inc
– performs TMF evaluations using FE results
– data integrated into Workbench platform
• uses Workbench file management
• shares Engineering Data and the Parameter Manager
 TMF Issues Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• At increased temperature
– tensile properties decrease

– fatigue resistance decreases

 TMF Issues Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• At increased temperature
– materials creep
– creep voids accelerate fatigue cracking

– oxidation accelerates
 TMF Issues Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• TMF is an important failure mechanism for many industrial

components
– exhaust manifold, exhaust mufflers, gas turbines, turbo chargers, etc.

• Turbo charger
– combination of thermal cycles and mechanical constraint create large
stress cycles
• major thermal/stress cycle due to engine start-stop cycle
– coupled elasto-visco-plastic FE analysis may be required to fully couple
thermal and stress cycles
• possible with ANSYS Mechanical and DesignLife
 TMF Solvers Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• ANSYS nCode DesignLife R16.2 has four basic TMF solvers

– Multi-temperature method
– Chaboche method
– Chaboche Transient method
– Creep Rupture
 Multi-Temperature Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Multi-temperature method
– uses temperature dependent set of fatigue curves to predict the
fatigue damage associated with the applied stress at temperature
• interpolates between curves
– applicable to moderate and constant (or slowly varying) temperatures
– most applicable when cyclic stresses are dominated by mechanical
stresses
– can be used with linear or elastic-plastic FE results
 Multi-Temperature Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Multi-temperature method
– temperature can be constant for the entire stress/strain history or vary
cycle-by-cycle
• one temperature per cycle is used - either the maximum or minimum
temperature that occurs during the cycle
– constant temperatures can be obtained from a hybrid load provider or
by using the default material temperature property
– varying temperatures are provided from a temperature load provider
as a child of a hybrid provider, where the stresses and temperatures
are synchronized in time
• Hybrid load provider superimposes different types of load providers,
including temperature
 Multi-Temperature Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Multi-temperature method
– applicable to both StressLife and StrainLife methods
 Chaboche Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche method
– similar to Multi-temperature method
– uses a set of temperature-dependent Chaboche fatigue curves to
predict the fatigue damage associated with the applied stress at
temperature
– applicable to moderate/high, but constant (or slowly varying)
temperatures
– most applicable when cyclic stresses are dominated by mechanical
stresses
– can be used with linear or elastic-plastic FE results
 Chaboche Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche method
– Chaboche curves are essentially modified S-N curves developed using
a non-linear damage evolution rule
• include a mean stress correction and adjustments near tensile failure and
endurance limit

b
 
Nf  
 A
 Chaboche Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche method
– temperature can be constant for the entire stress/strain history or vary
cycle-by-cycle
• one temperature per cycle is used - either the maximum or minimum temperature that
occurs during the cycle
– constant temperatures can be obtained using hybrid load provider or
by using the default material temperature property
– varying temperatures are provided from a temperature load provider
as a child of a hybrid provider, where they are synchronized in time
with the stresses
 Chaboche Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche method
– applicable to StressLife method
 Chaboche Transient Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche Transient method

– uses a single master Chaboche fatigue curve to predict the fatigue
damage associated with the applied stress at temperature
– multi-temperature Chaboche curves are collapsed onto one master
fatigue curve using a normalization parameter (usually proportional to
UTS)
 Chaboche Transient Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche Transient method

– applicable to moderate/high and varying temperatures
– applicable to thermally induced cyclic stresses
– varying temperatures are provided from a temperature load provider
as a child of a hybrid provider, where they are synchronized in time
with the stresses
• unlike multi-temperature and Chaboche methods, the temperatures are
provided time point by time point for the duration the transient
– not limited to using only maximum of minimum temperature for the cycle
 Chaboche Transient Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche Transient method

– normalization parameter is used to adjust the actual stress to create
an effective stress for comparison to the Chaboche master fatigue
curve
• converts the FE stresses to temperature-normalized stresses
– can be used with linear, elastic-plastic, or elasto-visco-plastic FE results
 Chaboche Transient Method Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche Transient method

– applicable to StressLife method
 Creep Rupture Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Creep
– inelastic deformation and damage due to combination of high
temperature and stress levels

• DesignLife models creep rupture

– applicable to high and varying temperatures
• creep damage is thought to be significant if the temperature exceeds ½ the
melting point (in Kelvin)
– can be added to fatigue damage from Multi-temperature, Chaboche,
or Chaboche Transient methods for complete creep-fatigue solution
• uses Robinson accumulation rule
 Creep Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Creep
– DesignLife supports Larson-Miller and Chaboche creep
 Chaboche Creep Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Chaboche creep
– uses set of nonlinear creep rupture curves to predict time to rupture
for the provided stresses and temperatures
 Larson-Miller Creep Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Larson-Miller
– uses damage function (LMP)
– Larson-Miller parameter merges temperature and rupture time into a
single parameter
 Combined Fatigue-Creep Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Combined Multi-temperature fatigue and Larson-Miller creep

 TMF Analysis Engines Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Which TMF solver is appropriate

 TMF Resources Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Three worked TMF examples in DesignLife Help system

– WEX_11, 12, ad 22
 TMF Resources Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• TMF Presentation by Dr. Andrew Halfpenny, Chief Technologist at

HBM nCode
– accessible on HBM nCode website
 Summary Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

• Thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) is a critically important failure

mechanism for many components
• DesignLife has four basics approaches for modeling TMF
– Multi-temperature curve method
– Chaboche method
– Chaboche Transient method
– Creep rupture
• Chaboche and Larson-Miller creep
• can be combined with fatigue damage methods to model complete fatigue +
creep damage
 Augus t 24 - 25 . Canons burg, PA

Thank You!
Many Thanks to
Jeff Mentley, HBM nCode