Metal Fatigue

Stress based approach

Ramesh Talreja
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Texas A&M University
Causes of Failure
The history of fatigue
• Sudden failure of railroad car axles in 1800s
• The British scientific approach
• The German engineering approach
• The Wöhler S − N plot
• Failure of two de Havilland Comet aircraft in 1954
• The fracture mechanics approach (crack growth rate), 1970s onward
• Safe life vs fail-safe approach
• Damage tolerant design
The early fatigue failures (from rotating axles)
The British scientific approach
(understanding what causes fatigue)
The answer lies in dislocations!
What happens when loads are applied cyclically?
Fatigue crack

Single load
Intrusion
Extrusion

Cyclic load
Stages of the fatigue process
Crack initiation Crack growth

Final failure

Stage I: Crack initiation

Stage II: Crack growth
Stage III: Final failure
Ni Np
The German approach pioneered by Wöhler:
Fatigue Testing

Laboratory testing
Railway car loading B B

C
A C A
D
D
The Wöhler Plot (S-N curve)
S: stress amplitude sa N: number of cycles
To obtain probability of failure
one must assume a
probability distribution for
fatigue life.

Then, the parameters of

that distribution can be
estimated by test data.

A common probability distribution is

Weibull.
Fatigue (endurance) limit

Steels: Yes

Al alloys: No
 Yielding versus fatigue failure in ductile materials

Failure under repeated (cyclic) stress

at smax < sU , called fatigue failure
Failure under monotonically increasing stress,
called (quasi)static failure at sU = tensile strength
 Typical fatigue data (S-N curves)

Fatigue limit (stress below no fatigue failure) More generally, stress at given (large)
is found for some metals, e.g., steels, and can be number of cycles, called fatigue strength
as low as 25% of sU is used.
Fatigue data for common metals.

Note:
Fatigue limit for typical aircraft
materials (Al and Ti alloys) does
not exist. Fatigue strength is
used in these cases.
S-N data-based design
Expression used by curve-fitting to data:

where sfat is the fatigue limit (if found)

or the stress amplitude at specified
large number of cycles, e.g., 106
b and c are curve-fitted constants.

Or, if sa is specified,
Aircraft loading spectrum

Simplified loading program

for testing and life prediction
Elements of loading blocks: A sinusoidal load

Mean stress, sm ≠ 0
Mean stress, sm = 0
Fatigue life calculated for this case
S-N data generated for this case
Cyclic stress variables
R = smin/smax
Effect of mean stress

Tensile strength
Yield stress
 ⎛ σm ⎞
Goodman: σ a = σ fat ⎜ 1− ⎟
⎝ σ ts ⎠

⎡ ⎛σ ⎞2⎤
Gerber: σ a = σ fat ⎢1− ⎜ m ⎟ ⎥
⎢ ⎝ σ ts ⎠ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
⎛ σm ⎞
Soderberg: σ a = σ fat ⎜ 1− ⎟
⎝ σ ys ⎠

sa = stress amplitude (fatigue strength at given N)

sm = mean stress
sfat = fatigue strength for sm = 0
sts = tensile strength
sys = yield stress
The Goodman diagram

⎛ σm ⎞
σ a = σ fat ⎜ 1− ⎟
⎝ σ ts ⎠
C

Factor of safety = OC/OA

O
Variable amplitude loads:
Damage accumulation

Actual stress variation

s1 s2
s3 k
ni
n3
Miner’s rule ∑N =1
n2 i=1 i
n1
Equivalent blocks of constant amplitude loads