Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

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Materials & Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

A damage-based uniaxial fatigue life prediction method for metallic

materials
Sergi Parareda a,c,⇑, Daniel Casellas a,b, Marc Mares a, Antonio Mateo c
a
Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya, Unit of Metallic and Ceramic Materials, 08243 Manresa, Spain
b
Luleå University of Technology, Division of Solid Mechanics, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden
c
CIEFMA – Department of Materials Science and Engineering, EEBE, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, 08019 Barcelona, Spain

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

A rapid fatigue test method based on

strain measurements is presented
with simple data treatment.

Fatigue damage monitoring is related
to different fatigue stages since
incipient fatigue damage to
macrocrack propagation.

The method allows an accurate
assessment of the fatigue limit and
threshold by only using a few
specimens.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Determining the fatigue behaviour of metallic materials using standardised testing methods is costly and
Received 28 February 2023 time-consuming. Therefore, several methods have been proposed to shorten the testing time and
Revised 12 May 2023 improve the fatigue optimisation of materials and components. This work presents a new fatigue testing
Accepted 30 May 2023
method based on fatigue damage monitoring that allows determining the fatigue resistance in a short
Available online 2 June 2023
time and with few specimens. The presented method, named as the stiffness method, monitors the inelas-
tic strains as an indicator of fatigue damage evolution. Strain measurements were carried out by digital
Keywords:
image correlation techniques and showed to effectively follow damage evolution during fatigue tests.
Fatigue test methods
Damage mechanics
Results are convincing and more evident to obtain and discuss than other monitoring techniques, like
Fatigue limit temperature dissipation. In addition, the method overcomes the main limitations of the existing fast test-
Fatigue crack growth ing methods by avoiding the utilisation of complex apparatus, like infrared cameras or acoustic emission
sensors. The approach has been validated in ten different metallic materials, as titanium and aluminium
alloys, carbon steels, and stainless steels. The estimated fatigue limit was compared with values obtained
following standardised tests, showing excellent agreement. Results allow pointing out the stiffness
method as an efficient and effective tool for rapidly determining the fatigue behaviour of metallic
materials.
Ó 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

⇑ Corresponding author at: Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya, Unit of The deterioration due to cyclic loading of a component or a
Metallic and Ceramic Materials, 08243 Manresa, Spain. material, known as fatigue, is still a concern in engineering compo-
E-mail address: sergi.parareda@eurecat.org (S. Parareda). nents. In many applications, most of the fatigue-loaded parts must

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2023.112056
0264-1275/Ó 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al.
withstand the entire life of the product without replacement, lead-
ing to the adoption of a safe-design strategy. This approach is
based on the stress vs number of load cycles (S-N) curves, which
require a large number of specimens and are time-consuming
tests. Therefore, fatigue characterisation of materials and compo-
nents is a long process, which hampers material development
and optimisation against fatigue. For this reason, the development
of alternative approaches and faster methods is receiving interest
from material developers and part designers.
At an early stage, fatigue of metallic materials occurs as an
accumulation of localised micro-deformations caused by cyclic
loading. This results in a large density of dislocations, significantly
higher than in monotonic loading, which forms structures like per-
sistent slip bands (PSB). At these locations, microcracks are gener-
ally nucleated, then grow, coalesce and finally create a macrocrack
that propagates until fracture [1]. Accordingly, the methodologies
aimed to quantify damage can be classified as fatigue damage
monitoring and crack monitoring [2]. The former describes the
stage before the macrocrack is initiated, while the second follows
the propagating macrocrack. The macrocrack growth is straightfor-
ward to detect and monitor with advanced optical techniques, but
monitoring the incipient fatigue damage stage is complex due to
the inherent nature of the phenomenon occurring at a microscopic
scale. However, fatigue damage generates heat, heterogeneously
deforms the microstructure, and increases the surface hardness,
which allows assessing the fatigue damage by measuring mechan-
ical parameters and physical properties, like temperature and
strain. This approach was first used by Stromeyer et al. [3] to eval-
uate in a short time the fatigue behaviour of metallic materials by
monitoring the thermal evolution in the specimen during a fatigue
test. It is commonly accepted that the temperature-cycles curve
has three regimes: increase, stabilisation, and fracture. Hence, the
monitorisation of the energy dissipated as thermal energy can be
used to determine the stress amplitude at the knee point, i.e., the
fatigue limit [4–6] and the fatigue curve [7,8]. Temperature can
be monitored using infrared cameras or thermocouples attached
to the specimen [9]. Most researchers who have used such meth-
ods have reported successful results in determining the fatigue
limit of metallic materials by using a reduced number of specimens
and time [10–14]. Nevertheless, the results obtained by measuring
the surface temperature often give rise to large data scatter, which
depends on loading frequency, specimen geometry and thermal
boundary conditions, as described by Zhao et al. [12] and Mene-
ghetti [15]. Giudice et al. [16] compared the thermal to the acoustic
emission (AE) measurements, and other authors to strain measure-
ments reporting a good correlation between the different tech-
niques [17–19]. Although thermal and AE measurements are
suitable for fatigue damage monitoring, there are some limitations
to their implementation, mainly due to the available equipment in
a laboratory and the required expertise to process the data after
the test, especially when using AE measurements. Thus, new,
robust, flexible, and easily implementable testing methods are
required to determine fatigue behaviour in a fast and experimen-
tally easy way. Recently, the authors of the present work presented
the stiffness method with convincing results for TWIP steel [20]. The
stiffness method monitors the damage evolution during a fatigue
test through strain measurements. It is simple and easy to run
experimentally and overcomes the main drawbacks of thermal
and ultrasonic methods. It is important to note that the character-
isation of the fatigue limit may raise questions about the existence
and definition of a fatigue limit, understood as the value of the
applied driving force below which no failure will occur, even over
an infinite lifetime. As Fernández-Canteli et al. [21] have proposed,
to address this question, is necessary to consider the specific fati-
gue failure mechanism under consideration. The rapid methods
discussed above are focused on determining the fatigue limit at
2
Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056
the high cycle (HCF) regime, as the lifetime of many engineering
components belongs to this regime i.e. between 106 to 107 cycles.
However, it is important to keep in mind that the existence of a
true fatigue limit remains an open question, and further research
is needed to fully understand the complexities of fatigue failures.
This paper presents an innovative application of the stiffness
method to ten different metallic materials from four distinct fami-
lies, accompanied by a new damage equation and data treatment,
addressing limitations of previous works, as well as investigating
the effect of the testing parameters, such as stress rate, and validat-
ing the fatigue fracture mechanism linked to microcrack growth
while introducing a new parameter, the fatigue damage threshold.
The present paper is divided into three parts. The first presents the
investigated alloys. The second describes the development and
application of stiffness tests applicable to each material, consider-
ing their mechanical properties, specimen geometry and
microstructure. And the third part compares the obtained results
with those from the conventional fatigue tests and discusses the
applicability of the stiffness method considering the testing param-
eters, such as the increasing stress amplitude rate and the defini-
tion of the macrocrack onset.
2. Materials
Ten metallic materials, in flat and cylindrical formats, with dif-
ferent chemical compositions and microstructures, have been
selected. They can be classified into four different families:

Aluminium alloys (AA). Two different aluminium alloys, in sheet
format, belonging to the Al-Mg (5xxx) and Al-Mg-Si (6xxx) fam-
ilies. AA5754 is a work-hardening alloy with good weldability
and high mechanical properties. This grade was tested at
H111 state, which includes a slight work hardening. AA6082
is heat treatable alloy. In this work, it was tested in T6 state
to improve mechanical properties by artificial ageing.

High-strength steels. Five steel grades, covering from low to
ultra-high-strength range, in sheet format and widely used in
automotive. S500MC is a hot rolled high-strength low alloyed
(HSLA) steel with a ferritic-pearlitic microstructure containing
a very fine dispersion of alloy carbides. The other four grades
belong to the advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) family.
Complex-phase (CP), dual-phase (DP), and press-hardened
steels (PHS) are 1st generation of AHSS, while twining-
induced plasticity (TWIP) steel belongs to the 2nd generation.
HR CP800SF is a hot rolled steel designed for high performance,
with a bainitic-ferritic matrix and martensite/austenite islands.
DP1000 is a cold rolled steel with a ferritic-martensitic
microstructure. This combination of soft and hard phases pro-
vides excellent strain hardening and elongation at failure. TWIP
steel presents an austenitic microstructure prone to twinning
deformation, resulting in higher strain hardening and elonga-
tion than DP steels for similar tensile strength. Both show very
good global formability [22,23]. The studied PHS is the 22MnB5
grade, typically used in hot stamping. It exhibits a fully marten-
sitic microstructure after the austenitisation treatment and
quenching in a water-cooled flat die. The PHS has an Al-Si coat-
ing, which is known to affect the fatigue limit [24].

Stainless steels. Two stainless steel grades, in sheet format,
belonging to the austenitic (AISI 301LN) and martensitic (AISI
410S) families. AISI 301LN exhibits higher corrosion protection
and an austenitic microstructure that shows high mechanical
properties due to its high strain hardening capability. The stud-
ied grade is similar to 301L but with N added to compensate the
lower C content for improved ductility and weldability. This
grade has been investigated with a severe cold rolling that
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al. Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

induced up to a 38 % martensitic transformation [25,26]. AISI 3.2. Testing conditions

410S is a modification of grade AISI 410, with less carbon con-
tent and a small addition of Nb or Ti. This steel was press-
hardened after austenitisation and quenching in a water-
cooled flat die, exhibiting a ferrite-martensite microstructure
after this heat treatment.

Titanium alloys. The common Ti alloy Ti6Al4V, in cylindrical for-
mat, has been investigated. The specimens were produced by
additive manufacturing (AM) through a selective laser melting
(SLM) process.
The mechanical properties listed in Table 1 were determined at
room temperature in monotonic tensile tests according to ISO 6892
standard. The selected families of metallic materials offer a wide
range of ultimate tensile strength, ranging from 240 to 1560 MPa.
3. Methodology
Fatigue resistance was evaluated in high-strength steels, stain-
less steels, and titanium alloys, by determining their fatigue
strength (rf) at 2million cycles. For aluminium alloys, fatigue
resistance was assessed at 10 million cycles. This approach is com-
monly used in the automotive sector [27,28]. Such fatigue resis-
tance describes the fatigue limit in the HCF regime. The fatigue
resistance was assessed using both the stiffness method and the
conventional staircase (or up-and-down) method. The Dixon-
Mood method’s staircase is widely applied in metallic materials
and the obtained values are well accepted to represent the fatigue
limit [29]. Accordingly, the values obtained by the stiffness method
were validated with the staircase ones. In the staircase tests, about
15 specimens were tested to determine rf. Conversely, in the stiff-
ness method, only 3 specimens per material were tested.
The specimens were tested at room temperature in a stress-
controlled servo-hydraulic testing machine MTS 322 Test Frame,
using a positive stress ratio (R = rmin/rmax) of 0.1 to avoid speci-
men buckling. The mechanical grips shown in Fig. 2 were designed
to test the small fatigue specimens under the same conditions. The
testing frequency was set at 30 Hz with a sinusoidal wave. The
stiffness test applies successive load blocks of 6000 cycles each
and an increase of maximum stress (rmax) between each block of
25 MPa. It is schematically described in Fig. 3. The total strain
range (Dei) was measured at the beginning of the test when the
material was non-damaged by fatigue, and after each block at a
nominal elastic stress of rYS/2 using a loading–unloading rate of
5 MPa/s. The test starts with a rmax of 50 MPa, far below the
expected rf, and ends with the total fracture of the specimen.
The method is described in reference [20].
The strain was measured using a 3D Digital Image Correlation
(DIC) system GOM Aramis SRX equipment with a resolution of
4096  3068 pixels that meets the requirements of ISO 9513 Class
0.5. The cameras were mounted onto a rigid support attached to
the testing machine. To eliminate the error due to self-heating,
the cameras were preheated for 1–2 h before the DIC measure-
ments [30]. The 3D calibration was performed before the test ses-
sion using a coded panel of 150 mm by 120 mm. External blue LED
light was used to illuminate the specimen and balance the effect of
the ambient light of the laboratory. The exposure time was set at
less than 5 ms, and the frame rate was 25 Hz. A facet size of
11  11 pixels was used. Dei was measured using a virtual exten-
someter placed at the centre of the fatigue specimen, which
encompassed the damaged zone. The initial length (L0) of the
extensometer was 9 mm.

3.1. Specimen geometry 3.3. Fatigue damage approach

The fatigue specimen geometry for flat materials is shown in
Fig. 1a. It is small and dimensioned to be observed in the scanning
electron microscope (SEM) after testing. The specimen was
designed according to the recommendations given in ISO 1099
for flat materials ensuring the fracture takes place within the cali-
brated zone of 2 mm in length. The investigated area was large
enough to consider the volume tested to be a representative ele-
mentary volume, as the microstructural dimensions were fine
enough. The flat specimens were machined from the sheet by laser,
transversally from the sheet rolling direction. The laser-cut edges
were ground to remove the laser-affected zone and polished up
to mirror with a roughness Ra < 0.2 lm. On the other hand, cylin-
drical specimens for the Ti alloy were manufactured by AM and
machined according to the geometry shown in Fig. 1b. The speci-
mens were polished to remove the surface roughness left by the
machining process.
The fatigue process can be described as the generation and
accumulation of damage. Such fatigue damage induces changes
in the mechanical response of the material, like stress or strain,
hardness, elastic response, and plastic or total strain energy.
Therefore, these properties can be used as damage variables in
cumulative fatigue damage monitoring [2]. In this work, Dei is
used to evaluate the fatigue damage as it is relatively easy to
monitor in a specimen. Dei can be separated into elastic (Dee)
and plastic or inelastic strain (Dep). It is well accepted that Dee
is reversible, while Dep is irreversible and related to permanent
fatigue damage [31]. Although in the elastic regime, an elastic–
plastic material shows no plastic deformation, some inelastic
deformations occur at the microscopic scale. This is attributed
to internal frictions that may nucleate microcracks, which act as
stress concentrators, leading to plastic zone development at the
crack tip. Such phenomenon of local deformation and microstruc-

Table 1
Thickness (t) for the flat specimens, diameter (d) for the cylindrical ones, and monotonic tensile properties of the investigated materials: yield strength (rYS), ultimate tensile
strength (rUTS) and elongation (A80).

Family Material t, d [mm] rYS [MPa] rUTS [MPa] A80 [%]

Aluminium AA 5754 H111 t = 1.8 131 ± 2 241 ± 5 24.0 ± 0.9
Aluminium AA 6082T6 t = 2.0 298 ± 4 333 ± 3 12.9 ± 0.6
HSLA S500MC t = 3.0 583 ± 3 651 ± 4 27.0 ± 0.2
AHSS HR CP800 SF t = 3.4 778 ± 15 835 ± 17 16.5 ± 0.5
AHSS TWIP t = 1.5 567 ± 4 930 ± 2 44.0 ± 1
AHSS DP1000 t = 1.9 798 ± 6 1059 ± 8 5.9 ± 0.4
PHS 22MnB5 t = 1.7 1330 ± 11 1560 ± 10 6.6 ± 0.2
Stainless steel AISI 410S t = 3.8 807 ± 13 996 ± 2 9.6 ± 0.6
Stainless steel AISI 301LN C1250 t = 1.5 926 ± 10 1173 ± 9 20.0 ± 1
Titanium Ti6Al4V d = 5.0 1090 ± 15 1136 ± 16 7.4 ± 0.7

3
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al. Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

Fig. 1. a) Dog-bone small specimen (Kt = 1.15) for sheet materials and b) Hourglass specimen (Kt = 1.03) for AM material. Dimensions are expressed in mm.

Fig. 2. Experimental device for the stiffness test. The mechanical grips were designed to assure the alignment of the small specimens in the fatigue testing machine.

YS/2

YS/2

N i

Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the stepwise loading procedure in the increasing stress fatigue test and strain measurements for nominal stress between each fatigue
block.

ture evolution, e.g., sliding, multiplication and pile-up of disloca-
tions and creation of PSB, can be observed in the macroscopic
scale as a change in the inelastic strain that modifies the width
and position of the stress–strain hysteresis loop [17,32,33]. The
evolution of Dep against the number of cycles allows identifying
three zones characterised by different strain progress rates linked
to the damage process [32]: (i) elastic stress–strain behaviour of
the undamaged material identified by a negligible Dep; (ii) small
crack initiation and growth shown as an increase of Dep; and (iii)
coalescence and formation of a dominating macrocrack identified
by a sudden increase of Dep. Then, the cumulative plastic strain
ratio related to fatigue damage (D) from micro-crack nucleation
(D = 0) to crack coalescence (D = 1) may be quantified according
to [32–36]:

4
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al.
Dep  Dep0
D¼
Depf  Dep0
in which Dep0 and Depf are the initial and final Dep, respectively. The
determination of each parameter is described in section 4. In this
definition, the damage evaluation is relative to the non-damaged
material. Accordingly, the damage progress rate (dD/dN) concept
is defined as:
dD
¼ f ðrmax Þ
dN
where N is the number of cycles of the block, and f(rmax) can be
found in data analysis.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Strain analysis and identification of fatigue damage threshold
The Dei values measured for the investigated materials are plot-
ted in a double logarithmic scale as a function of the load cycle
number. The results for a representative material of each material
family are shown in Fig. 4. The shape of all curves is similar to the
one presented in previous work for a DP500 steel [33]. The three
regimes linked to the fatigue damage mentioned in the previous
section are observed in these plots, from the incipient fatigue dam-
age to macrocrack propagation. These regimes were identified by
evaluating the strain progress rate (dDei/dN). The first range is
defined by a dDei/dN value of 0, the second range is characterised
by 0 < dDei/dN < 108, and the third range corresponds to a dDei/dN
i ii iii
i
N N
i ii
i
N N
Fig. 4. Total strain range against the number of loading cycles after the fatigue blocks of the stiffness test for a) AA 6082T6, b) DP1000, c) 301LN C1250, and d) Ti6Al4V.
Dashed lines separate the three ranges (i), (ii) and (iii) of the fatigue damage development according to dDei/dN rates.
Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056
value greater than 108. For the damage analysis, in this work, only
ð1Þ
the first ranges (i) and (ii), regarding fatigue damage onset and
growth, were considered. The third range (iii) corresponds to the
propagation of a macroscopic crack and should be analysed in
the frame of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM), and it is
out of the scope of this paper.
The Dep obtained from the strain measurements was plotted as
a function of the rmax applied for every fatigue load block (Fig. 5).
The Dep measurements up to 103 are similar to the ones reported
ð2Þ by Colombo et al. [17] for a C45 steel. Dep values show a clear tran-
sition from a constant value close to zero to a raising trend after a
given maximum stress value is reached. Such inflexion point is
here defined as the fatigue damage threshold (rth) and may be
graphically determined by plotting the Dep vs rmax in a logarithmic
scale, as shown in Fig. 5. The rth values, listed in Table 2 and indi-
cated in Fig. 5, lie in the range of a plastic strain of 105, which is in
good agreement with the values reported by Mughrabi for the ini-
tiation of damage in terms of incipient surface microcracks [37].
The physical meaning of this threshold may be explained through
the Granato-Lücke dislocation model and Frank-Read dislocation
multiplication theory [38]. It is assumed that materials have many
defects at the microscale, like inclusions, vacancies, grain bound-
aries and dislocation lines. Dislocations are pinned to the crystal
lattice at weak or strong pinning points. If a stress far below the
threshold is applied, the dislocation lines start to loosen up from
the weak pins and reversibly slide between the strong points. This
behaviour is called a non-plastic effect and corresponds to the
reversible micromechanism with no accumulation of fatigue dam-
age. However, when the applied stress is above such threshold, the
i ii iii
i
iii i ii iii
5
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al. Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

dislocation lines loosen from some strong pins, and others are still
unable to release, resulting in dislocation sources that generate
new dislocation lines. Once the applied stress is high enough, it
is assumed that the microcracks will be initiated at the formed
PSBs, internal inclusions or surface defects, and observed by Dep
measurements. Despite this rth may define the microcrack initia-
tion, it does not describe the fatigue limit, rf, for the HCF regime
commonly evaluated at 106 or 107 cycles. It is accepted that rf is
defined as the stress value below which the generated damage,
i.e. defects like microcracks, do not propagate to fracture for a
given number of cycles [39,40]. The difference between rth and
rf is related to the fatigue damage tolerance capability of the
microstructure.
p
4.2. Evaluation of fatigue limit
The key point of the stiffness method is to accurately identify
when microcracks evolve into a long propagating crack, i.e. end
of the range (ii). This point is characterised by a dDei/dN value
greater than 108. This strain value is required to get the damage
of the material using Eq. (1), where it is denoted as Depf. The initial
value of the inelastic strain range Dep0 is calculated as the average
value of the points up to rYS/2, and the current value of Dep is mea-
sured after each fatigue block.
The calculated damage was analysed using the damage progress
rate concept defined in Eq. (2). As shown in Fig. 6, the fatigue dam-
age evolution is described by a dD/dN of 105 cycle1 for all the
materials, which agrees with the analysis performed by Socha
[35]. Such damage stages belong to the range (ii) identified in
Fig. 4, which mainly contains the growth of nucleated microcracks,
and accordingly are used to determine the fatigue limit. Then, the
interception of the fitting line of these points (at least 5) to the x-
axis defines the stress value below which the microcracks will not
propagate, i.e., the rf. Fig. 5 depicted a representative curve for

each metallic material family investigated, showing the linear fit-

ting of the points associated with microcrack propagation and its
interception in the x-axis. It should be noted that the incipient fati-
gue damage defined by a progress rate in the 106-107 cycle1
max max regime is not used to determine the rf as it is related to microplas-
ticity and incipient microcracks. If a large scatter, greater than 5% is
observed between specimens tested by the stiffness method, addi-
tional specimens should be tested. The results are summarised in
Table 2, where the average rf values obtained from the three spec-
imens are compared to the staircase values (rf-SC) illustrated in
Fig. 7 for two materials. The obtained values for steels, stainless
p

steels and titanium present a good agreement with those of the

conventional method, showing a relative error below 10 %, a sim-
ilar deviation, as reported by other rapid methods like the self-
heating method [9].
The fatigue data obtained in the stiffness method tests were also
max max evaluated according to the approach proposed by Columbo et al.
[19]. They evaluated the thermal and Dep measurements using
the method proposed by De Finis et al. [41] to determine the fati-
gue resistance. The analysis consists of evaluating the standard
deviation of the first five values belonging to the range (i) of each
specimen and setting the threshold value as six times the standard
deviation. The fatigue strength corresponds to the stress of the first
block that overcomes this threshold. Such fatigue strength (rf-6r)
p
p

is in perfect agreement with the rth related to the initiation or very

slow growth of fatigue microcracks at the very beginning of the
range (ii). By comparing the rf to the rth it is observed that the val-
ues are similar for most materials like the aluminium and AM tita-
max max nium alloys, while it is different for most steels and stainless steels.
This behaviour can be explained by the fatigue notch sensitivity of
the different materials. Damage-tolerant or tough materials, such
as steels and stainless steels, can deal with small cracks or defects.
However low-tolerant materials cannot deal with microcracks or
defects as they rapidly propagate. Therefore, the materials with
high fatigue notch sensitivity show the same value for initiation
p

and non-propagating microcracks [40,42].

4.3. Experimental validation of the fatigue fracture mechanism

To validate that the Dep measurements in range (ii) are related

max max to propagating microcracks, some fatigue tests were interrupted in
this range before the microcracks coalescence and growth. The
Fig. 5. Inelastic strain range versus maximum stress curves from the stiffness
specimens were cyclically loaded at the same conditions estab-
method for several materials: a) AA 6082-T6, b) DP1000, c) AISI 301LN C1250, and lished in section 3.2. and stopped at a stress level of 325 MPa for
d) Ti6Al4V also represented in a logarithmic scale. A solid black marker highlights the AA 6082T6, 875 MPa for the DP1000 and 1150 MPa for the AISI
the rth. 301 LN C1250, according to the strain analysis performed in Fig. 4.
6
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al. Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

Table 2
Fatigue damage threshold (rth), Dep at the inflexion point and fatigue limit determined by the stiffness method (rf-SM). Fatigue strength evaluated using the here obtained data
through the standard deviation approach (rf-6r) [41] and determined by the staircase method (rf-SC).

Material rth [MPa] Dep [%] rf-SM [MPa] rf-6r [MPa] rf-SC [MPa]
AA 5754 H111 144 8.9  105 147 ± 11 144 149 ± 12
AA 6082T6 200 6.7  105 211 ± 12 213 205 ± 11
S500MC 481 9.5  105 537 ± 41 509 560 ± 48
HR CP800 SF 456 5.7  105 613 ± 36 484 622 ± 9
TWIP 485 9.8  105 588 ± 29 514 590 ± 23
DP1000 630 2.6  105 800 ± 45 630 786 ± 3
22MnB5 517 5.6  105 709 ± 42 517 727 ± 53
AISI 410S 543 3.7  105 552 ± 28 543 553 ± 9
AISI 301LN C1250 659 1.9  105 903 ± 36 659 956 ± 88
Ti6Al4V 831 9.6  105 824 ± 37 831 788 ± 42

Due to the limited amount of material available to run the inter-

rupted fatigue test and inspect the surface of the AM specimens,
the fracture surface of the specimens tested with both the staircase
and the stiffness methods were inspected by SEM. Fractographic
inspections, shown in Fig. 9, reveal that in both cases the fatigue
initiation defects were similar. Fatigue crack initiation points were
located near the surface of the specimens, which confirms that the
dD/dN

fatigue mechanism is the same and that fatigue cracks mostly start
from a microstructure feature near to surface. These findings are
consistent with the fatigue initiation points reported by several
authors working with additive-manufactured Ti6Al4V samples
[43,44].

max 4.4. Stress rate effect on the fatigue limit assessment

Fig. 6. Damage progress rate for an AA 6082T6, DP1000, 301 LN C1250 and Ti6Al4V.
The specimens were inspected at the SEM to detect the generated
damage. Fig. 8 shows some microcracks distributed through the
specimen and perpendicularly oriented to the load direction. As
can be seen, the surfaces of the specimens were not polished to
maintain the same surface initiation mechanisms and not affect
the fatigue behaviour. Such microcracks are small, around shorter
than 6 ± 3 lm. Then, it is demonstrated that the Dep measured in
the (ii) regime is related to the microcrack development and can be
used to predict the fatigue limit as non-propagating microcracks.
Another point to be discussed is the stress increase effect
between the applied fatigue blocks, i.e., the applied stress rate,
dr/dN. Teng et al. [45] investigated this effect in the self-heating
method, resulting in a negligible influence on the determination
of fatigue resistance. In this work, a stepwise-stress increase of
25 MPa was applied. This value was considered appropriate as it
only represents 2–3% of the yield strength of the investigated
steels. The value was also kept constant for the aluminium alloys,
where the selected value represented more than 10 % of the yield
strength due to their low strength. Then, the effect of the stress
increase rate in the fatigue resistance determination should be
considered, as a high value can lead to poor fatigue prediction. This
point was highlighted for AA 5754, as the stress increase was

Fig. 7. Staircase results for a) AA 6082T6 and b) DP1000. Dashed lines indicate the fatigue limit determined according to the Dixon-Mood method.

7
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al. Materials & Design 231 (2023) 112056

Fig. 8. Fatigue microcracks observed in the interrupted fatigue specimens just before the microcracks coalescence for the a) AA 6082T6, b) DP1000, and c) AISI 301LN C1250.

Fig. 9. Fracture surface analysis of Ti6Al4V specimens from a) staircase and b) stiffness method.

almost 20 % of the yield strength. The utilisation of this stress rate
predicted a fatigue limit of 29 MPa, which is far from the fatigue
limit of this alloy. By adjusting the stress rate and using a value
of 12.5 MPa for the aluminium alloys, the predicted value showed
an excellent agreement with the values reported using the stair-
case method. Consequently, it is stablished that the stress increase
between fatigue blocks, in terms of maximum stress, must be set
below 10 % of the yield strength.
5. Summary and conclusions
This work assessed the application of the stiffness method to
estimate the fatigue limit on ten different metallic materials. The
method shows accurate values for the fatigue limit, with good
agreement with the one obtained by a standardised method, as
the well-accepted staircase. Based on the experimental work, the
following conclusions can be drawn:

8
S. Parareda, D. Casellas, M. Mares et al.
- Inelastic strain is a good parameter to monitor fatigue damage.
The evolution of strain through the fatigue cycles allows identi-
fying the different fatigue stages, from the non-damaged mate-
rial up to the final fracture, going through the microcrack
initiation and microcracks coalescence to a macrocrack. These
ranges can be easily differentiated by the dDei/dN parameter,
showing an exponential increase once the macrocrack propa-
gates steadily.
- Two fatigue resistance values can be determined using the stiff-
ness method: the conventional fatigue limit rf at 106 cycles for
the HCF regime related to non-propagating microcracks and the
fatigue damage threshold rth related to the microplasticity
threshold and the initiation of microcracks. The rf is deter-
mined using the data from the microcrack propagation, while
the rth is defined by the sudden increase of Dep.
- The inspection of specimens from the interrupted fatigue test
allowed to discern the incipient damage, as small surface
microcracks, at the end of the fatigue range (ii). Such microc-
racks will grow and coalesce into a macrocrack that will propa-
gate in the fatigue range (iii). Therefore, the physical
explanation of these two fatigue ranges was experimentally
validated.
- The stiffness method allows to rapidly determine the fatigue
resistance of different metallic materials, from hot-rolled steel
sheets up to titanium alloys manufactured by AM, using a
reduced number of specimens and conventional laboratory
equipment.
Data availability
The data that has been used is confidential.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results has received funding from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 innovation action programme
under grant agreement No 101006844 – Fatigue4Light project
and the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-106631GB-
C41).
The authors are also grateful to the Direcció General de Recerca
del Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca de la Generalitat de
Catalunya for recognizing CIEFMA as a consolidated Research
Group (2021SGR01053).
Data availability
The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings
cannot be shared at this time due to legal or ethical reasons.
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