Introduction  13

and the number of load cycles. Higher applied stress amplitude needs fewer cycles to rupture, and
vice versa. The general design curve is as shown in Fig. 1.6. The allowable stress amplitude reduces
asymptotically to the limit called the endurance limit. For a polished specimen, the endurance limit is
reached at somewhere between 106 and 107 cycles, but a commercial pipe generally reaches the limit
at much higher cycles. By looking at the curve, we might wonder why the allowable stress at 10 cycles,
for instance, is almost as high as 106 psi. This is more than ten times higher than the ultimate strength
of a common pipe material. This is because the allowable stress amplitude from fatigue tests is mea-
sured by the strain, which makes very little sense to ordinary engineers. Expressing the allowable in
stress makes it easier to connect with engineers. However, this stress is just an elastic equivalent stress
obtained by multiplying the allowable strain with the modulus of elasticity. When the strain exceeds
the yield strain, the stress becomes a fictitious stress. In other words, the stress is not a real stress when
it exceeds the yield strength of the material.
In fatigue, we are dealing with stress range. One-half of the stress range is called stress amplitude.
This stress amplitude is used mainly from the typical mathematical formula, which can express the
stress as a type of cyclic function such as A(sin ωt), where A is stress amplitude and ω is circular fre-
quency of the stress cycle.
Fatigue failure is generally classified as low-cycle fatigue and high-cycle fatigue. This classification
is required due to the somewhat different nature of these two types of fatigue. In practice, fatigue curve
can be idealized into two straight lines. Line L-L represents the low cycle fatigue and line H-H repre-
sents the high cycle fatigue. L-L is a straight line in log-log scale, whereas H-H has a constant value
equivalent to the endurance limit. The actual curve is rounded at the transition zone, which seldom
participates in actual applications. Because of the different basis used by different codes in calculating
the stresses, it is important to remember that the fatigue curve used in one code may not be applicable
to another code.
Low cycle fatigue normally applies to stress changes due to normal start-up and shutdown cycles,
major load fluctuation cycles, and occasional load cycles. The thermal expansion stress range is the
most common and well-known stress that may produce low-cycle fatigue failure. At low cycle fatigue,
the stress range and the number of cycles to failure have a log-log straight line experimental relation

Fig. 1.6
Low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue curves