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Research Paper

Power density based fatigue load spectrum editing

for accelerated durability testing for tractor front
axles

Changkai Wen a,b, Bin Xie a,b,*, Zhen Li a,b, Yiyong Yin a,b, Xueyan Zhao a,b,
Zhenghe Song a,b
a
College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
b
Beijing Key Laboratory of Optimized Design for Modern Agricultural Equipment, Beijing, China

article info
The fatigue load spectrum is one of the most important parts in accelerated durability
Article history: testing of agricultural machinery; however, the traditional editing approach just focuses on
Received 8 May 2020 influence of load amplitude on mechanical components, which is not suitable for the
Received in revised form agricultural machinery, the loads of which are broad in frequency bandwidth and time-
7 September 2020 varying in stress amplitude. Therefore, considering the comprehensive influence of load
Accepted 13 September 2020 amplitude and frequency on the fatigue life of materials, a power-density-based fatigue
load spectrum editing (PD-LSD) approach for accelerated durability testing is proposed
ensuring that fatigue load spectrum for accelerated durability testing of tractor compo-
Keywords: nents can reproduce operation load characteristics of components. The concept of power
Tractor front axle density is introduced, and a fatigue analysis method based on power density and short-
Short-time Fourier transform time Fourier transform (STFT) is discussed. For the approach of this study, STFT and
Power density stress-life (SeN) curve were used to derive accumulative power density (AccPD) of the load
Load frequency signal. The AccPD identified and extracted high fatigue damage segments of original load
Fatigue load spectrum editing signal and obtained reduced accelerated load spectrum of components. Based on the load
approach signal of the 88-kW tractor front axle, this approach and the time damage editing approach
were applied to edit the load signal. The results show that, the accelerated load Signal I
based on the PD-LSD approach with a shorter length of time contained almost same
damage of the original load signal, and the statistical parameters (mean value, root mean
square and kurtosis coefficient) and the signal amplitude domain of the accelerated load
Signal I were more consistent with the original load signal, which verifies the acceleration,
accuracy and effectiveness of the approach. This research supports fatigue testing and
durability analysis for a key component of agricultural machinery.
© 2020 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.

E-mail address: xiebincau@126.com (B. Xie).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2020.09.008
1537-5110/© 2020 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
74 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8

measured load spectrum length, while also guaranteeing

Nomenclature approximately consistent fatigue damage.
Research on fatigue load spectrum editing methods for
AccPD Accumulative power density, (W/m3)
accelerated durability testing can be divided into two main
AccPDcutoff Accumulative power density cut-off level,
areas:
(W/m3)
(1) From the perspective of the time domain, the fatigue
Ai Power density value corresponding to Fi, (W/m3)
load spectrum editing method for accelerated durability
Amean Average accumulative power density, (W/m3)
tests is mainly based on damage retention. Conle and Topper
c Test constant
(1979) in their study first introduced fatigue data editing
dS/dt Stress power density function
technology to the automotive industry and identified and
D0 Original load signal data point
abbreviated low amplitude cycles in the components strain
DT Accelerated load signal data point
time history. El-Ratal, Bennebach, Lin, and Plaskitt (2002)
fi Load frequency, (Hz)
used a multi-axial non-proportional fatigue damage model
Fi Dominant frequency at time t0, (Hz)
to identify damaging sections of loading histories of the
j Time steps
automotive components, combined with advanced joining
k Test index
functions of retained time windows, allowed accelerating
l Multiplicative factor
the full test from 34 to 11 days. Londhe, Kangde, and
N0 Cycle radix value
Karthikeyan (2012) carried out a proving ground test for
Nf Total number of limit cycles until material
body in white and chassis structural of the car, and derived
fatigue fails
the compressed load cycle from the measured road load data
(Nf)i Number of cycles until failure with Ai
in order to produce representative and meaningful yet
Ni Number of cycles associated with Fi
economical load cycle for fatigue simulation. Johannesson
Nreq Equivalent cycle valve
and Speckert (2013) thoroughly studied the durability load
PD Accumulative fatigue damage with T
analysis approach of vehicle engineering, offered the eval-
PDthreshold Power density threshold,(W/m3)
uation strategies of customer loads and the verification
S Stress level,(MPa)
method of systems and components. At the same time, the
Sl Stress fatigue limit,(MPa)
time-domain data editing method was introduced in the
t0 Given time, s
field of materials and composite materials to process the
T Given total time period, s
load spectrum of the components, which mainly studied the
Zi Absolute value of the power density to stress
load spectrum truncation, correction, and loading sequence
ratio at time t0
(Heuler & Seeger, 1986; Ko, Oh, & Choi, 2005; Nyman, Ansell,
ai Load amplitude, (MPa)
& Blom, 2000; Phillips, 1979; Stephens, Dindinger, & Gunger,
Dt Time period (s)
1997). Other industries, such as aviation, have also carried
sr Fatigue limit corresponding to N0
out time-domain editing-related work on accelerated load
sreq Equivalent fatigue limit corresponding to Nreq
spectra, but mainly focusing on small-amplitude load
reduction and system correction (Buch, 1980; Lanciotti &
Lazzeri, 1992; Xiong & Shenoi, 2008). In recent years, the
1. Introduction fatigue test rig and accelerated load spectrum research have
been conducted in the field of agricultural machinery. For
Tractors are pivotal items of agricultural machinery. An example, Mattetti, Molari, and Vertua (2015) in their study
important component of the tractor transmission system in used a four-post road simulation test bench to study the
four-wheel drive systems, the front axle is partly responsible accelerated durability of a tractor and used the time-domain
for the functioning of the entire machinery and it also affects damage reservation editing method to effectively compress
the vibrations caused by soil-machine interactions and the the displacement signal (bib_Mattetti_et_al_2015,Mattetti
additional torque load transmitted by the front propeller shaft et al., 2015). Subsequently, Mattetti, Molari, and Sereni
in various field operations. Its operation load is complex and (2017) equipped an agricultural tractor with four Wheel
typical (Mattetti, Molari, & Sedoni, 2012). Drive axles and Force Transducer (WFTs) and a CAN-Bus-based data logger
steering drive axles have a high failure rate, which is the focus to acquire axle housing loads and the driver’s operation
of tractor driveline reliability analysis (Nanaware & Pable, signals, and the load event was identified by analysing the
2003; Nguyen & Inaba, 2011; Shao, Liu, & Chris, 2011; Taright, paired time-varying correlation coefficient (TVCC) between
Mohtasebi, & Alimardani, 2011; Topaç, Günal, & Kuralay, them. Paraforos, Griepentrog, and Vougioukas (2016a, 2016b)
2009). in their study performed a durability test on swathers that
Laboratory-based accelerated fatigue tests are an impor- combined the material SeN curve and linear fatigue damage
tant method for verifying the design of mechanical parts. theory, which shortened the test time from 4100 he601 h. At
These tests are therefore widely used owing to their ability to present, most of the accelerated fatigue tests for agricultural
reproduce the actual operation load of components through machinery are based on the development of new equipment
the test bench and compress the load signal of accelerated and the application of traditional time-domain editing
tests. The fatigue load spectrum forms the basis of laboratory- methods. By comparison, little research has been conducted
accelerated tests and ensures a shorter loading time than the on the frequency information of the load spectrum.
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8
The majority of the time-domain accelerated durability
load spectrum editing methods disregard frequency infor-
mation. In the case of tractors that lack adequate suspension
systems, frequency information is more important for tractor
accelerated tests and is an important parameter for fatigue
signals.
(2) From the perspective of frequency domain, Oh (2001)
introduced wavelet transform into the automotive compo-
nent load spectrum analysis for the first time and used a DB30
Daubechies wavelet to remove the noise and glitch of the
original data signal. Subsequently, more research was carried
out on frequency-domain fatigue data editing in the auto-
motive field (e.g. Steinwolf, Giacomin, & Staszewski, 2002).
Abdullah, Giacomin, and Yates (2004, 2006, 2009, 2013) used
wavelet transform, S transform, and short-time Fourier
transform (STFT) to summarise the fatigue load data of com-
ponents, such as the lower automobile suspension, which
were better able to retain the original damage and greatly
compressed the signal (Putra, Abdullah, Nuawi & Nopiah,
2010; Putra, Abdullah, Schramm, Nuawi & Bruckmann, 2014,
2017, 2019). developed a fatigue data editing method based
on wavelet transform by exploring the accuracy of Morlet
continuous wavelets and the possibility of wavelet and fuzzy
c-means fusion. Additionally, they analysed and processed
the strain signals of certain components, such as the lower
arm and spring of automobile suspension, which greatly
reduced the small value load and ensured the effectiveness
and accuracy of the fatigue editing technology.
A series of frequency-domain load extraction research has
also been conducted in the field of horizontal axis wind tur-
bines for durability tests and load spectrum. To conduct time-
frequency analysis of the load signal of the blade to obtain the
energy distribution of the load signal and extract the
threshold value, which reduced the accelerated durability
load spectrum, Pratumnopharat, Leung, and Court (2013, 2014)
used STFT and wavelet analysis. At present, little research has
been conducted on the frequency-domain fatigue data editing
of the accelerated fatigue load spectrum of agricultural ma-
chinery components.
In summary, the load spectrum editing approaches for
fatigue test both in time-domain and in frequency-domain are
based on the standard fatigue analysis theory and the SeN
curve which is shown in Fig. 1. In Fig. 1, the line AB indicates
Fig. 1 e Schematic diagram of SeN curve.
75
that the area where the stress amplitude is larger than the
fatigue limit sr is a finite life area. Each stress amplitude in this
area corresponds to an exact number of stress cycles, so the
corresponding fatigue life can be deduced by the relationship
between the stress amplitude and the number of stress cycles.
The line BC indicates that if the stress amplitude is below the
fatigue limit sr, the stress will not cause damage to the ma-
terial. However, when agricultural machinery is working in
the field, the key components are subjected to the operation
loads which are broad in frequency bandwidth and time-
varying in stress amplitude. In this case, even if the stress
amplitude is lower than the fatigue limit sr, the low amplitude
load is accompanied by high frequency, which can also cause
fatigue damage to the material. This indicates the standard
fatigue analysis theory, which considers only the load
amplitude and ignores the load frequency, is not suitable to
estimate the fatigue life of agricultural equipment.
Moreover, affected by the SeN curve, the existing fatigue
load spectrum editing approach is not reasonable, because it
is assumed that the frequency of large-amplitude loads is low,
the frequency of small-amplitude loads is high but only large-
amplitude loads will cause fatigue damage. As a result, the
load spectrum at this stage cannot reflect the actual fatigue
damage of the mechanical components, and fatigue damage
caused by the load is different from its energy distribution.
In order to solve this issue, the basic principle of the Min-
er’s rule is adopted by extending the stress-life curve below
the fatigue limit while maintaining the slope (i.e., the straight
line BD), as shown in Fig. 1. Then, the assumption is revised as
fatigue damage under the fatigue limit was equivalent to the
above. Therefore, the coupling effect of the load amplitude
and frequency on the fatigue life of the key components could
be described effectively and quantitatively.
Recently, research on frequency effects has accelerated,
and a number of research papers have indicated that fre-
quency effects have important implications. Oh, Suh, and
Sue (2008) conducted to a series of reliability analyses and
proposed the concept of power density on the fatigue char-
acteristics of solder joints in a high-performance electronic
flip chip assembly. Subsequently, Branigan and Suh (2018)
analysed the response of the power density system and
predicted the failure locations based on the multiaxial vi-
bration fatigue test for each of the ten load cases. The pre-
dicted failure locations were in excellent agreement with the
experimental results. This research completed the power
density theory and showed that the power density concept is
a novel way of viewing fatigue failure that is based on the
physical phenomenon of power being deposited into a vol-
ume during stress oscillations. The power density concept
quantified fatigue with two physical parameters, stress
variation and the frequency at which it occurs. This gives the
total damage inflicted on the material from the power den-
sities at every frequency and time interval. Power density
accumulation eventually damages the component enough to
cause it to fail by fatigue. The material is expected to fail
once the accumulated power density (AccPD) reaches a
certain point e the “power density threshold (PDthreshold)”e it
is expected to fail by fatigue. These results indicated that the
power density concept is a viable alternative to quantifying
fatigue failure.
76 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8

Therefore, the fatigue load spectrum editing approach for dS DS

fatigue test based on SeN curve only considers the effect of
stress amplitude on the fatigue life of the components. For
tractors that lack sufficient suspension systems, standard
methods cannot accurately extract random non-stationary
loads, which are characterised by wide frequency bands and
time-varying amplitudes during operation. Therefore, in order
to fully consider the coupling effect of load amplitude and
frequency on the fatigue life of tractor parts, try to introduce
the concept of power density, and further explore the fatigue
life analysis of key components and the approach of editing
the accelerated durability fatigue load spectrum that meet the
characteristics of tractor operating load.
The objective of this study is therefore to propose a power-
density-based fatigue load spectrum editing (PD-LSD)
approach for complex operation conditions and time-varying
tractor loads. This method can be used for accelerated dura-
bility tests and is suitable for the full range of tractor operation
conditions. This approach seeks to accurately extract the
tractor load characteristics, use the accumulative power
density (AccPD) to identify the high fatigue damage segments
of the measured stress signal, and greatly reduce the length of
the original stress signal.
2. Materials and methods
By focusing on the tractor’s operating responses that are
broad in frequency bandwidth and time-varying in stress
amplitude, the general idea that only large amplitude loads
can cause fatigue is not applicable to this case, therefore, this
paper proposes the PD-LSD approach, which considers, cal-
culates and quantifies the real fatigue damage distribution of
load spectrum. Based on the measured stress load and SeN
curve, this paper uses STFT to conduct load time-frequency
analysis and proposes the concept of AccPD as a means of
quickly extracting high fatigue damage segments to prepare
the fatigue load spectrum for accelerated durability tests. The
technical flow of this paper is shown in Fig. 2.
2.1. Power-density-based fatigue load spectrum editing
theory
PD ¼ ¼ lim ¼ lim DS,f (2)
dt Dt/0 Dt Dt/0
where t is time and f is the frequency of the stress alterna-
tions. Power density results from changes in stress magnitude
over time. All the stress alternations that occur across a broad
bandwidth of frequencies contribute to the accumulation of
power density. Combine short-time Fourier transform (STFT)
to process load signal, the power density can be expressed as
P
2pfi ai cosð2pfi tÞ (Giv, 2013; Mateo & Talavera, 2018).
In order to calculate the fatigue life of a mechanical
component, the SeN curve of the component’s material must
be known, and the SeN curve can be calculated when the
material and mechanical properties of the component is
known. In the finite lifetime region of 103  N  N0 , the SeN
curve equation in the form of a power function can be
expressed as
skr N0 ¼ skreq Nreq ¼ C (3)
The double logarithmic form of the SeN curve is converted
into a single logarithmic form to solve for the gradient. Next, the
functional relation between dS/dt, the induced ‘power density’,
and the total number of limit cycle Nf at which the material fails
are obtained from the SeN curve using the following:
  
dS dt ¼ func1 Nf (4)
The inverse function of the relationship between the
power density of a material and the total number of limit cy-
cles when the material undergoes fatigue failure can be
defined as:
Nf ¼ func2 ðdS = dtÞ (5)
As is known, for stress load signals with a wide frequency
bandwidth and variable amplitude, the gradient is solved to
obtain the power density curve. Based on discretisation, the
power density function ðdS=dtÞt¼t0 at any time t ¼ t0 can be
decomposed into several cosine functions including the main
frequency Fi and the corresponding power density value
Ai¼(dS/dt)i using STFT. Thus, the power density function
ðdS=dtÞt¼t0 can be expressed as
X
ðdS=dtÞt¼t0 ¼ Ai cosðFi DtÞ (6)
i

2.1.1. Power-density-based fatigue analysis Therefore, in the time interval Dt at a specific time t ¼ t0 ,
The power density theory is an alternate description of fatigue the fatigue damage can be measured by accumulative power
failure. Among this, the power density is a new concept, density (AccPD)
which starts with the temporal gradient of the stress ampli- X  
tude S, and, the SI unit of dS/dt is [Pa s
1]. Therefore, the AccPD ¼ Ni = Nf i (7)
i
temporal gradient of the stress amplitude can be deduced in
the SI units, Based on the number of time steps j, the fatigue damage in


  
  
a given total time period T can be expressed by the PD, which
Pa s
1 ≡ N m
2 s
1 ≡ N m m
3 s
1 ≡ is calculated as
  

 N m s
1 m
3 ≡ W m
3 (1) !
X
m X  
Thus, an equivalent unit of dS/dt is [W m
3] and the tem- PD ¼ Ni Nf i (8)
j¼1 i
poral gradient of the stress amplitude can be understood as
the power generated by the stress load on the unit volume of For the fatigue analysis method based on the power den-
the material. It is, therefore, defined as the power density. sity, fatigue will occur when the AccPD reaches a certain value
Therefore, power density (PD) is the time variation of a “power density threshold”, the judgment criterion for material
stress, S, as follows fatigue failure is
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8 77

Fig. 2 e Theoretical flow chart.

! Therefore, the PD-LSD approach is suitable for the tractor

X
m X  
PD ¼ Ni Nf i  PDthreshold
j¼1 i time-frequency domain is known, and the appropriate AccPDcutoff
2.1.2. Extraction of high fatigue damage segments based on
accumulative power density
The standard fatigue load spectrum editing approach for
accelerated testing is based on the SeN curve. It assumes that
only large-amplitude loads will cause fatigue damage to the
material, and the influence factor of load loading frequency is
not considered. This directly leads fatigue damage caused by
the load spectrum calculated by the existing method not
agreeing with the real situation, and eventually the editing of
the load spectrum does not reduce the load segments ac-
cording to the strict fatigue damage distribution. Therefore,
many researchers have assumed that the frequency energy
distribution of the load spectrum has a certain relationship
with the fatigue damage distribution. However, it is obvious
that this kind of relationship is nonlinear, and this method
still contains guesswork components. The PD-LSD approach
proposed in this paper can effectively solve these problems.
Firstly, a series of theoretical studies have verified that power
density can be used as an effective parameter to quantify fa-
tigue. Secondly, the load spectrum of a segment of time is
divided into load data of time interval, and the AccPD of each
unit time is calculated by comprehensively considering the
load amplitude and frequency in each time interval. There-
fore, the load spectrum of each time interval corresponds to
the calculated AccPD. Finally, a lot of AccPD continue to
accumulate until the material fatigue failure. At this time, the
sum value of the AccPD is the power density, so the AccPD
caused by the load spectrum each time interval can directly
represent the value of fatigue damage.
(9) accelerated test. The AccPD distribution of the stress data in the
is selected by considering the fatigue damage retention and the
length of the load spectrum reduction. This value is compared
with the peaks in the AccPD distribution to identify the high
AccPD segments. It is known from the basic theory of this
approach that the AccPD can directly indicate fatigue damage.
Therefore, after determining the high AccPD segments, the high
fatigue damage segments of the measured stress signal could be
extracted according to the index function of the program.
The fatigue analysis method, which takes into account the
power density, can be used to obtain the AccPD of the
measured data. As shown in Eq. (6), the calculation, which is
based on the power densityetime curve of the measured
stress and the functional relationship between the limit cycle
number and the power density when the material undergoes
fatigue failure, can be used to obtain the accumulative fatigue
damage in the time period Dt. Therefore, the distribution law
of load data, AccPD and fatigue damage can be derived.
(1) The load data in each time interval corresponds to a
calculated and determined AccPD. Therefore, given a
certain value of AccPD, the load data of the time in-
terval in which the AccPD was generated can be
deduced.
(2) The amplitude of the AccPD calculated from the load
data in each time interval can directly represent the
magnitude of fatigue damage caused by the load in
that time interval.
Secondly, according to the fatigue analysis method that
takes into account the power density, loads of any amplitude
78 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8
at any time can cause fatigue damage. Utilising the concept of
AccPD as the evaluation standard, the AccPD cut-off level was
used to identify high AccPD segments to determine the pres-
ence of high damage segments in the measured stress signal.
The specific judgment standard was:
AccPD  AccPDcutoff
Matlab2016b (Mathworks Inc, Natick, MA, USA) was
applied to the AccPD distribution map of the measured load. A
red line was used to represent the AccPDcutoff to separate the
AccPD of the distribution chart quickly and accurately ac-
cording to the cut-off level. This further clarified the differ-
ence between the high and low AccPD, accurately retained the
high AccPD segments, and enabled the low AccPD segments to
be deleted.
The AccPDcutoff parameter is important as the core criterion
in accelerated durability load spectrum editing. The AccPDcutoff
is directly related to the degree of fatigue damage, which can
directly and effectively discriminate the high AccPD and
identify the high fatigue damage segments in stress signals.
The Amean was obtained by processing the measured data
based on the power-density-based fatigue analysis method,
and AccPDcutoff was expressed as:
l
AccPDcutoff ¼ Amean
The AccPDcutoff is closely related to the AccPD, which rep-
resents the fatigue damage. When selecting this parameter, it
is important to take into account the overall distribution of the
AccPD, particularly the mean value. The mean of the overall
AccPD represents the average level. Therefore, the mean value
can be taken as the reference value of the AccPDcutoff to
calculate the fatigue damage retention and feedback the
calculation results, and analyse the difference between the
damage retention corresponding to the AccPDcutoff and the
expected damage retention. Then, according to the specific
value of the difference, the AccPDcutoff is adjusted, and the
appropriate AccPDcutoff is determined through the above steps
finally.
Additionally, in the PD-LSD approach, each AccPDcutoff cor-
responds to a unique reduced edited load signal length. The
AccPDcutoff should have the goal of reducing the load spectrum
length. AccPDcutoff is directly related to the reduction of the
load spectrum length. In the equation, D0 is the length of the
original load signal data point, and DT is the length of the
edited load signal data point. Therefore, the length ratio r(T)
before and after the load signal editing is used as one of the
criteria to evaluate the impact of a specific AccPDcutoff on the
load spectrum reduction, and is specifically expressed as:
DT
rðTÞ ¼
D0
Where r(T) is the ratio of the length of the load spectrum
before editing to the length of the load spectrum after editing,
and can indicate the reduction result of the load spectrum
length corresponding to each AccPDcutoff in a digital form.
Therefore, the AccPDcutoff should take into account the fa-
tigue damage retention before and after editing, as well as the
ratio of the load spectrum length before and after editing as
the goal for the assessment. The two aspects are mutually
restricted, and optimising the parameter value is required.
Based on a reasonable selection of the AccPDcutoff and the
identification of the high AccPD, the results of comparing the
AccPD calculated in the time-frequency domain of the
measured data and the AccPDcutoff were mapped to the time
(10)
domain of the measured data. In this theory, the AccPD can
directly represent the fatigue damage, so low AccPD is equiv-
alent to low fatigue damage. And because the load at each
moment will produce the AccPD, then, in the AccPD distribu-
tion, use MATLAB index to determine the specific location of
the AccPD. Subsequently, according to the principle of one-to-
one correspondence between AccPD and time, the data loca-
tion that caused low fatigue damage was directly found in the
original load data and deleted. Meanwhile, the high fatigue
damage segment included in the measured data was extracted
and reconnected to maintain the original load time series to
form an edited accelerated durability load spectrum.
Finally, the characteristics of the edited load spectrum and
the original load spectrum were analysed to verify their ac-
curacy and acceleration. The consistency analysis of the ac-
celeration and fatigue damage included the length of the load
spectrum, the compression ratio of load spectrum, and the
damage retention. The accuracy characteristic analysis
(11) included the statistical parameters (mean value, root mean
square value and kurtosis coefficient), amplitude domain level
crossing count analysis, and frequency-domain power spec-
trum density analysis. The above approach is implemented in
MATLAB (Version 2016b, MathWorks. Inc, MA, USA).
2.2. Dynamic stress acquisition and field test systems
To obtain the measured load data of the tractor’s field oper-
ation and analyse the edition method of the accelerated
durability fatigue load spectrum of the front axle housing, a
dynamic stress test acquisition system based on the C-DAQ
system (National Instruments Corp, TX, USA) was constructed
to perform a stress test on a typical tractor field operation. In
this paper, six test points were selected for stress testing, and
BSF120-3AA uniaxial strain gauges (Beijing Yiyang Strain and
Vibration Testing Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China) were
used. The finite element analysis approach was used to locate
the exact position for the steering drive axle housing critical
area. Figure 3 shows the strain gauge position of the steering
drive axle housing. A schematic diagram of the specific dy-
namic stress test system is shown in Fig. 4. The sampling
frequency, fs, was 5 kHz and was chosen to ensure the accu-
racy and comprehensiveness of the data. The acquisition and
recording time of each measurement point was 105 s, and
each measurement point had 525,000 data points. The tractor
(12) field operation test site is shown in Fig. 5.
The path of the tractor ploughing operation test is shown
in Fig. 6. The test site was the Shangzhuang Test Station of
China Agricultural University, Haidian District, Beijing. In the
test, the ploughing test operation commenced at the east-
ernmost side of the site. A total of two straight driving-
turning-turning-right driving-right turning cycles were per-
formed in the middle of the site. The ploughing testing oper-
ation was stopped after around 45 m of straight driving.
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8 79

Fig. 3 e Strain gauge locations on the front axle housing. Key: 1. Front axle; 2. Drive shaft; 3. Transmission; 4. Transfer case;
5. Drive axle.

Fig. 4 e Dynamic stress acquisition system. Key: 1. Front axle; 2. I/O conditioning module; 3. Switching mode power supply;
4. A/D converter; 5. Data acquisition module.
80 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8

Fig. 5 e Tractor field operation test site map. Key: 1. Cab; 2. Hydraulic hitch system; 3. Front axle; 4. Drive axle; 5. Moldboard plow.

Fig. 6 e Schematic diagram of tractor ploughing test path.

The main parameters of the test system used in this field damage segments; and load spectrum editing and character-
test are shown in Table 1 and mainly include the mechanical istics analysis.
properties of QT450-10 material for the front axle and the
environmental conditions. 3.1. Accumulative power density

According to PD-LSD approach, the SeN curve of the material

3. Results and discussion and the measured stress-time history are needed to calculate
the AccPD. The SeN curve of the material can be treated to
The reporting of the results of this study is divided into the obtain the functional relationship between the limit cycles
following three parts: AccPD; extraction of high fatigue and the power density when the material reaches fatigue

Table 1 e Test system main parameters.

Mechanical properties of QT450-10 Value Environmental and operation parameters Specification
Yield Strength, ss (MPa) 310 Soil type Loam
Tensile strength, sb (MPa) 450 Ambient temperature ( C) 8
Modulus of elasticity, E (GPa) 169 Ambient humidity (%) 36
Poisson’s ratio, ε 0.275 Test condition Ploughing
Fatigue strength exponent, b
0.087 Number of ploughs per operation 5
Fatigue ductility exponent, c
0.696 Operation width (mm) 1500
Fatigue ductility coefficient, εf’ 0.202 Digging depth (mm) 280
Strengthen coefficient, K (MPa) 1199 Operation speed (km h
1) 8
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8
failure. The measured stress curve can subsequently be
treated to obtain the power densityetime curve. Finally, the
AccPD at a particular time can be obtained by comparing the
two.
The power density life curve of QT450-10 of the front axle
housing was calculated:
 
ðdS=dtÞi ¼ Zi  448:7
39:25lgNf  106
The total number of limit cycles when the material un-
derwent fatigue failure can be expressed by the power density
ðdS=dtÞ:
 
ðdS=dtÞi
  11:43
2:54810ð
8Þ  Zi
Nf i ¼ 10
The stress data of six measurement points obtained from
tractor ploughing operation test were studied. The specific
data curve is shown in Fig. 7.
It can be seen from Fig. 7 that the mean value of the
measured load data point 1 is relatively large, and the load
fluctuation is more obvious with the change of working con-
ditions, which has typical agricultural machinery operation
load characteristics. In the actual test conditions, the mea-
surement point 1 is located at the junction of the front axle
and the wheel hub, which not only bears the gravity of the
tractor but also the vibration caused by the rough ground and
the additional force generated during the steering process. In
addition, measurement point 1 is the stress concentration
area in the finite element analysis, which is prone to fatigue
cracks. Therefore, the measurement point 1 is regarded as the
key point of the analysis and calculation.
The frequency-domain characteristics of the measured
load were analysed according to the PD-LSD approach, and the
time gradient was obtained for the measured stress value to
determine the power densityetime curve. STFT was
Fig. 7 e Stress-time signals for strain gauges: (a) L1, (b) L2, (c) L3, (d) L4, (e) L5, and (f) L6.
81
performed on the power densityetime curve to obtain the
time-frequency characteristics of the signal, such as the time,
frequency, and energy density based on the power density,
and subsequent to the preceding sentence. The STFT of the
power densityetime curve at measurement point 1 is shown
in Fig. 8. The pink area in the figure represents the frequency
with the energy amplitude greater than 1.5  1015W m
3, the
(13) selection of the threshold value needs to consider the overall
energy distribution of the analysed data segment, and the
value is generally equal to the median of the overall energy
value. The energy value of frequency in this pink area is
generally above the mean value in the overall value distribu-
tion, which may include the probability of fatigue damage.
(14) Therefore, it is a region worthy of further analysis. Red circles
represent parts of the energy peak of some frequencies where
the frequency of was at the highest level of energy obtained
from the measured data through the time-frequency analysis
and therefore worthy of special attention.
Further to this, the normalisation processing of the
measured data shown in Fig. 8 was conducted to obtain STFT
coefficients that corresponded to all the main frequencies Fi
contained in the data at specific times. These coefficients
represented the relative size relationship between the energy
distribution of all the main frequencies at specific times in a
specific data segment and the maximum energy distribution
of the main frequency in the frequency domain at all times.
The AccPD value at any time could be calculated according to
the formula. Taking t ¼ 0.0032s as an example, here, the AccPD
is expressed as:
ðdS=dtÞt¼t0 ¼ A 0:7955 cos 97:65Dt þ 0:9173 cos 449:21Dt
þ 0:9146 cos 800:78Dt þ 0:9304 cosð1386:71DtÞ
þ 0:9366 cosð1816:40DtÞ þ 0:8573 cosð2226:56DtÞÞ
(15)
82 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8

Fig. 8 e STFT of the power densityetime curve of measurement point 1.

Finally, the AccPD was calculated according to the math-
ematical relationship between the limit cycles of fatigue fail-
ure and the AccPD shown in Eq. (13). When t ¼ 0.0032 s, the
absolute value of the ratio of power density to stress was
Zi ¼ 5.0137, which further simplified Eq. (13)
 
Nf i ¼ 10½11:43
5:08210 ðdS=dtÞi 
ð
9Þ
(16)
The accumulative cycles Ni, which corresponded to the
main frequency Fi were calculated a Dt time interval and the
limit cycles (Nf)i in the case of material fatigue failure. Finally,
the AccPD value of the main frequency fi to the material in the
time interval Dt at a characteristic time t ¼ 0.0032 s was
calculated according to Eq. (6). The results of the calculations
are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 demonstrates the theoretical process and step-by-
step results of the AccPD. This process included the main
frequency of the measured load signal at specific times and
the corresponding power density calculations. Combined with
the SeN curve, the AccPD at specific times within a certain
time period were obtained. The calculation process indicated
that the essence of the AccPD is the accumulative fatigue
damage caused by the load signal to the material. Therefore, it
can be said that the AccPD is a basic parameter for extracting
high fatigue damage segments and is at the core of the power-
density-based fatigue load spectrum editing approach.
3.2. Extraction of high fatigue damage segments
Here, the use of the AccPD to identify and extract high fatigue
damage segments in the measured stress is discussed in
detail. A total of 525,000 data points of measurement point 1
were divided into 525 sections, each containing 1000 data
points, to facilitate the analysis and explanation. STFT and a
power-density-based fatigue life analysis were performed on
the first-stage data in Fig. 9(a) to generate an AccPD distribu-
tion map, as shown in Fig. 9(b). The accumulated damage
caused to the material by the measured data per unit time
interval is shown, which is the AccPD.
As shown in Fig. 10 (a), there were 73 peak values of AccPD
in the distribution diagram of the AccPD of the measured data
in the first section of measurement point 1, from which the
position and size of the peak values were determined. The red
line, which represents a particular value (i.e., the AccPDcutoff),
was used to separate the AccPD in the distribution map ac-
cording to the cut-off interception standard, where the cut-off
level of AccPD was set to 10
6 W m
3. Further, according to

Table 2 e Accumulative damage situation at time t ¼ 0.0032 s during time interval Dt ¼ 0.0002s.
Main Accumulative power Accumulative number of Number of limit cycles The fatigue damage Accumulative power
frequency density at each main cycles corresponding to corresponding to each corresponding to density within Dt/
(Hz) frequency (W m
3) each main frequency Ni main frequency (Nf)i each main accumulative fatigue
frequency damage
97.65 5.6742  107 0.01953 6.6956  1012 2.9170  10
15 1.6641  10
13
449.21 6.4927  107 0.08984 1.0644  1013 8.4405  10
15
800.78 6.4413  107 0.16016 1.0339  1013 1.5490  10
14
1386.71 6.3840  107 0.27734 1.0009  1013 2.7709  10
14
1816.40 6.2458  107 0.36328 9.2555  1012 3.9250  10
14
2226.56 5.5195  107 0.44531 6.1339  1012 7.2598  10
14
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8 83

Fig. 9 e Measured data and corresponding AccPD distribution of measurement point 1: (a) stress-time history of
measurement point 1 and (b) AccPD of measurement point 1 data.

Fig. 10 e Identification and processing of the AccPD segment of the measurement point 1 data: (a) AccPD distribution and
cut-off level of the measurement point 1 data and (b) Identification and deletion results of the AccPD of the measurement
point 1 data.

this cut-off level, the high AccPD segment was retained, and
the low AccPD segment was deleted, as shown in Fig. 10(a).
A comparative analysis was subsequently conducted based
on the visual analysis in Fig. 10 and by calculating the char-
acteristic parameters before and after the processing of the
first section data of measurement point 1. After AccPD iden-
tification of this segment of data, the number of data points
that reached or exceeded the threshold level of 10
6 W m
3
AccPD was 467, which was 53.3% less than the total 1000 data
points in the first section before processing. There were 73
AccPD distribution peaks before and after the treatment, and
the specific peak locations and size did not change. The AccPD
of this segment of data was 9.5249  10
8 W m
3; compared
with the AccPD 9.8109  10
8 W m
3 before processing, 97.08%
84 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8
of the AccPD was retained. A series of comparisons indicated
that the choice of cut-off level of the AccPD was reasonable.
3.3. Fatigue load spectrum for accelerated durability test
The PD-LSD approach, which was based on the SeN curve and
the measured stress load spectrum, was used to achieve the
fatigue load spectrum editing for the accelerated durability
test. STFT was used to quantify the coupling effect of the load
amplitude and loading frequency on the material, as well as to
obtain the AccPD distribution map of the original load signal.
The AccPDcutoff was used to identify and extract the high AccPD
segment, which was further mapped to the corresponding
load signal segment of the original load time domain. Finally,
reconnection was performed to ensure the time series and
obtain the accelerated load spectrum after the reduced signal
at the optimal cut-off level. Here, take 525,000 data of mea-
surement point 1 as an example to edit the load spectrum to
obtain the accelerated load signal I. In order to clearly show
the difference between the original signal and the edited
signal, select the first segment of data of measurement point 1
to display the processing results, as shown in Fig. 11.
For comparative analysis, the stress data of measurement
point 1 of the tractor front axle is processed by the time
damage editing (TD) approach to obtain the accelerated load
signal II. The damage retention is set to 96%, and the reduced
load signal obtained from the first section of the measurement
point 1 is displayed, as shown in Fig. 12.
A comparative analysis of data points, time, and accumu-
lative damage before and after editing was conducted to
further verify the acceleration and damage consistency of the
PD-LSD approach. The specific comparison between the orig-
inal load signal and the two accelerated load signals is shown
in Table 3. The analysis showed that the PD-LSD approach
shortened the original load signal length from 104.9998 s to
49.6648 s, and the reduced accelerated load signal I was only
47.3% of the original load signal length. In addition, the edited
Fig. 11 e Edit the original load signal based on the PD-LSD approach: (a) original load signal and (b) accelerated load signal I.
load spectrum damage retention was controlled within
96.88%, and the fatigue damage loss was far less than the 10%
load spectrum damage retention accuracy criterion. The time
damage editing method is used to reduce the length of the
original load signal to 68.985s. The reduced accelerated load
signal II is 65.7% of the original load signal, and the edited load
spectrum damage retention is 96%. To sum up, the two load
spectrum editing methods basically retain the damage of the
original load signal, but the compression ratio of the acceler-
ated load signal I is greater. Therefore, applying the PD-LSD
approach to reduce the load signal can ensure better accel-
eration and damage consistency.
3.4. Comparative analysis of load spectrum
Fatigue load spectrum characteristics analysis was conducted
primarily from the perspective of statistical features, ampli-
tude domain characteristics, and frequency-domain charac-
teristics. The results show that the PD-LSD approach
effectively retains the statistical features, amplitude level
distribution, and frequency energy distribution of the original
load spectrum so as to ensure the accuracy of the fatigue load
spectrum editing.
The analysis of the statistical parameters of the fatigue
load spectrum mainly included the mean value, root mean
square value, and kurtosis coefficient. It was verified that the
PD-LSD approach retained the parameter characteristics of
the original load signal. The statistical parameters and
comparative changes of the original load signal and the two
accelerated load signals are shown in Table 4. According to the
analysis, when comparing the statistical parameters of the
accelerated load signal I with the original load signal, the
resulting comparison errors of the mean value, root mean
square value, and peak coefficient are 2.79%, 4.41%, and 8.64%,
all of which are less than the 10% error judgment range.
Compared with the original load signal, the accelerated load
signal II has relatively large errors in various statistical
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8 85

Fig. 12 e Accelerated load signal II based on time damage editing approach.

Table 3 e Load spectrum compression ratio and damage retention analysis before and after editing.
Load signal Data point Time (s) Accumulative damage Compression ratio (%) Damage retention (%)
Original signal 525,000 104.9998 2.9376  10
5 / /
Accelerated signal I 248,325 49.6648 2.8461  10
5 52.7% 96.88%
Accelerated signal II 344,925 68.985 2.8201  10
5 34.3% 96%

Table 4 e Statistical parameter analysis of original load signal and accelerated load signal.
Statistical parameter Original signal Accelerated signal I Error/% Accelerated signal II Error/%
Mean (MPa)
449.82
462.39 2.79%
468.74 4.21%
Root mean square (MPa) 463.67 484.12 4.41% 492.53 6.22%
Kurtosis coefficient 3.45 2.98 8.64% 2.79 19.1%

parameters. The relative error of the kurtosis coefficient has
reached 19.1%, exceeding the error judgment range of 10%.
Therefore, this comparison result verifies that the PD-LSD
approach proposed in this paper can better maintain the
statistical characteristics of the original load signal when
editing the fatigue load spectrum.
The fatigue load spectrum amplitude domain level
crossing counting analysis counted the frequency of data
sampling points that rose or fell across given amplitude level,
which reflects the distribution of each load amplitude level.
Figure 13 shows the level crossing counting analysis of the
original load signal and the two accelerated load signals. The
analysis shows that the results of the two accelerated load
signals through the entire amplitude domain are consistent
with the original load signal, and the cycle frequency of the
large and small amplitudes of the two accelerated load signals
is reduced. Among them, the small amplitude cycle frequency
of the two accelerated load signals has the same reduction
degree, but for the large amplitude cycle frequency, the
reduction degree of the accelerated load signal II is greater.
This comparison result shows that the PD-LSD approach
proposed in this paper can ensure that the characteristics of
the fatigue load spectrum amplitude range are broadly similar
before and after editing.
The fatigue load spectrum frequency-domain power
spectral density analysis counted the frequency components
contained in the data signals and the corresponding power
levels. The effect of each frequency component on the me-
chanical parts could be explored from the perspective of en-
ergy. The power spectral density analysis of the original load
signal and the two accelerated load signals is shown in Fig. 14.
The analysis shows that the two accelerated load signals and
the original load signals changed in a broadly consistent
manner across the entire frequency domain and had very
similar energy distributions in the frequency bands of
0e100 Hz and 200 to 2000 Hz. This comparison result effec-
tively indicates that the PD-LSD approach can retain the fre-
quency distribution of the original load spectrum and the
energy contained in each frequency.
In summary, compared with time damage editing
approach, the fatigue load spectrum processed with the PD-
LSD approach showed a high consistency with the original
load spectrum in terms of statistical characteristic param-
eter distribution, amplitude domain size distribution,
frequency-domain dominant frequency, and energy distri-
bution. The results demonstrate the accuracy of the PD-LSD
approach for processing the load spectrum in accelerated
durability tests.
86 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8

Fig. 13 e Analysis of the level crossing counting of the original load signal and accelerated load signals.

Fig. 14 e Analysis of power spectral density of original load signal and accelerated load signals.
 b i o s y s t e m s e n g i n e e r i n g 2 0 0 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 7 3 e8 8
4. Conclusion
The concept of power density was introduced to develop the
load spectrum editing approach. This combines power density
with time-frequency analysis and considers the main char-
acteristics of tractor operating responses that are broad in
frequency bandwidth and time-varying in stress amplitude.
The use of AccPD to identify and extract the high fatigue
damage segment in the measured stress-time history to
shorten the stress signal was proposed for the first time. This
approach overcomes the disadvantages of traditional fatigue
load spectrum editing approach based on SeN curve, which
only focuses on load amplitude and ignores load frequency,
and quantifies the fatigue damage calculation of load spec-
trum, so that the accelerated load signal editing can be
completed in strict accordance with the fatigue damage dis-
tribution of load spectrum. The PD-LSD approach was used to
delete and retain the stress-time history of the tractor’s front
axle and retain time series information. This represents the
first time that this approach has been applied in the field of
agricultural machinery.
The comparison between power-density-based fatigue
load spectrum editing (PD-LSD) approach and time damage
editing (TD) approach were performed. The edited accelerated
load signals obtained from each approach retains the fatigue
damage at almost the same level as the original damage,
about 96%. This indicates that both the PD-LSD approach and
the TD approach can be used with high confidence. However,
the TD approach provided edited accelerated load signals as
65.7% of the original length whilst the PD-LSD approach pro-
vided 47.3% of the same original length. This shows that PD-
PSD approach can provide shorter acceleration load signal.
In addition, the error of PD-PSD approach is significantly
smaller in the mean value, root mean square value, kurtosis
coefficient analysis and amplitude level crossing counting
analysis, which can better maintain the characteristics of the
original load. Therefore, this fatigue load spectrum editing
approach, which is based on the power density and STFT, has
high accuracy, consistency, and acceleration. In addition, the
PD-LSD approach has two other clear advantages: firstly,
compared with the traditional fatigue data editing method,
the core of this method involves fatigue life analysis based on
power density, which takes into account the characteristic
information in the data frequency domain and accurately
quantifies the coupling effect of the load amplitude and load
on material fatigue life; Secondly, the approach uses AccPD as
the fatigue analysis index and directly performs the deletion
and save operation, which greatly improves the fatigue dam-
age retention of the accelerated fatigue load spectrum after
editing.
In summary, the edited accelerated durability fatigue load
spectrum can be used to accelerate laboratory durability fa-
tigue tests. At the same time, this approach, which combines
power density and STFT to reduce the load signal, can also be
used as an alternative technology in fatigue durability
research in the agricultural machinery field.
87
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
All of the authors would like to acknowledge the National Key
Research and Development Plan of China (2017YFD0700301).
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