Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000
Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000 www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
ScienceDirect www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

Procedia Structural Integrity 46 (2023) 99–104

5th International Conference on Structural Integrity and Durability

5th International Conference on Structural Integrity and Durability
Determination of standard deviation for fatigue strength based on
Determination of standardthe
deviation for fatigue strength based on
tensile test
the tensile test
Przemysław Strzeleckia*
Przemysław Strzeleckia*
a
Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,
a Kaliskiego
Bydgoszcz University of 7,85-796
Science and Bydgoszcz,
Technology, Poland
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,
Kaliskiego 7,85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland

Abstract
Abstract
The paper presents a method to determine the S-N curve for low probability of failure e.g. 5 % using a small number of specimens
from the fatigue
The paper presentstests and taking
a method a standard
to determine thedeviation
S-N curvefrom the probability
for low tensile test of
(distribution
failure e.g.for
5 %the logarithm
using a smallof the yield
number strength).
of specimens
Verification of the
from the fatigue method
tests was carried
and taking out for
a standard fatigue from
deviation tests of
theconstructive steel S355J2+C
tensile test (distribution and logarithm
for the stainless steel 1.4301.
of the The tests
yield strength).
were performed
Verification on method
of the a rotary was
bending machine.
carried out forThe obtained
fatigue results
tests of shown that
constructive theS355J2+C
steel proposed andmethod givessteel
stainless lower1.4301.
fatigueThe
strength
tests
for
werea performed
5 % probability of failure
on a rotary bending thanmachine.
the S-NThe curve estimated
obtained acc.
results ISO-12107,
shown that the (2012)
proposed standard.
method So, thelower
gives proposed method
fatigue is
strength
conservative and can beofused
for a 5 % probability by engineers.
failure than the S-N curve estimated acc. ISO-12107, (2012) standard. So, the proposed method is
© 2021 The Authors.
conservative and can be Published
used by by ELSEVIER B.V.
engineers.
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This
© is an open accessPublished
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
This is an open access article under the ELSEVIER
2021 The Authors. by CC BY-NC-ND B.V.
license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review
This is an under
open responsibility
access article of
under ICSID
the CC 2021 Organizers.
Peer-review under responsibility of ICSID 2021 Organizers license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
BY-NC-ND
Keywords:
Peer-review S-Nunder
curve;responsibility
high-cycle fatigue; probability
of ICSID 2021ofOrganizers.
failure;normal distribution; scatter of fatigue tests;
Keywords: S-N curve; high-cycle fatigue; probability of failure;normal distribution; scatter of fatigue tests;

1. Introduction
1. Introduction
Designing new parts of machines must be known fatigue strength for a design lifetime, which can be expressed by
a number of cycles.
Designing Forofthis
new parts purposemust
machines S-Nbecurves
known can be used.
fatigue The recommended
strength characteristics
for a design lifetime, which can refer to max. 5 by
be expressed %
probability
a number ofofcycles.
failureFor
PN-EN
this 1993-1-9,
purpose S-N (2007),
curvesPN-EN
can be13749,
used. (2011) and Hobbacher,
The recommended (2008). Where
characteristics referhumans
to max.life
5% is
dangerous
probabilityby
of failure
failureof machines,
PN-EN it is required
1993-1-9, (2007),toPN-EN
make fatigue
13749, tests.
(2011)Fatigue tests of materials
and Hobbacher, (2008).and structural
Where elements
humans life is
are time-consuming
dangerous by failureand require specialized
of machines, equipment
it is required to makeand qualified
fatigue tests. personnel, which
Fatigue tests makes them
of materials expensive.elements
and structural For this
reason, normative documents
are time-consuming and requirewere developed
specialized to define
equipment andthe minimum
qualified numberwhich
personnel, of samples
makes to determine
them the For
expensive. fatigue
this
reason, normative documents were developed to define the minimum number of samples to determine the fatigue

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +48523408672.
*
Corresponding p.strzelecki@utp.edu.pl
E-mail address:author. Tel.: +48523408672.
E-mail address: p.strzelecki@utp.edu.pl
2452-3216 © 2021 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.
This is an open
2452-3216 access
© 2021 Thearticle under
Authors. the CC BY-NC-ND
Published by ELSEVIERlicense
B.V.(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review
This under
is an open responsibility
access of ICSID
article under the CC 2021 Organizers.
BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of ICSID 2021 Organizers.

2452-3216 © 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of ICSID 2021 Organizers
10.1016/j.prostr.2023.06.017
100 Przemysław Strzelecki et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 46 (2023) 99–104
2 Przemysław Strzelecki / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000

characteristics, e.g. ISO-12107, (2012), ASTM E-739-91, (2015), while ensuring the reliability of the test result.
Unfortunately, a significant amount of samples is required. According to the standard ISO-12107, (2012), it is 30
samples for reliability & design purposes and 10 for preliminary tests.
P. Gope, (1999) has analysed a number of specimens for particular stress level. He estimated that 10 specimens are
required for a 10 % probability of failure and 90 % confidential level. Lewis & Sadhasivini, (2004) have gotten 7
specimens for two-parameter Weibull distribution. Then P. C. Gope, (2012) estimated minimum specimens to estimate
the S-N curve and he has gotten 13 samples. The estimation of the minimum number of specimens was presented by
Soh Fotsing et al., (2010), where they got 7 for 50 % of probability of failure. The author has not found any methods
of increasing the accuracy of the fatigue characteristic by taking information from the tensile test.
The work aims to develop a method for determining the S-N fatigue characteristics with a low probability of damage
(e.g. 5%) based on several samples, e.g. 8 and the results of the monotonic tensile test. An idea of how to estimate
such characteristics is depicted in Figure 1. The mean of fatigue strength is estimated from fatigue tests for a small
number of specimens and the standard deviation is estimated from tensile test.

Nomenclature

N number of cycles
Sa stress amplitude
Su ultimate tensile stress
Sy yield stress
b intercept coefficient of S-N curve
m slope coefficient of S-N curve
σR standard deviation of the yield stress
σS standard deviation of the fatigue strength

indexes
i i-th number of sample
ഥ mean value

Experimental yield strength

Stress amplitude Sa (log)

S-N curve– log(Sa)=m log(N)+b

Mean value from S-N curve

Experimental fatigue life

Strength distribution-f(Sa) with standard

deviation from tensile tests acc. eq. (4)

Number of cycles, N (log)

Fig. 1. Scheme of S-N curve obtained by the proposed method

 Przemysław Strzelecki et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 46 (2023) 99–104 101
Przemysław Strzelecki / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000 3

2. Proposed method

To describe the S-N curve can be used Basquin equation, which is suggested by ISO-12107, (2012) and is expressed
as follow:

log�𝑆𝑆� � � � � ����𝑁𝑁� � � � (1)

The least square method is recommended to estimate these parameters, which is describe in ISO-12107, (2012).
Such estimated curve has a normal distribution, which is written as:
�
� �������� ����������� �����
��log�𝑆𝑆� �� � ��� � � (2)
���
������

Results of the yield strength can be also expressed by the normal distribution, which has form as follow:
�
� ����
�������� ������� � ��
� �log�𝑆𝑆� �� � ��� � � � (3)
� ��
�����

The proposed method assumes that the S-N curve for 50% probability of failure is estimated for the small number
of specimens e.g. 8 (eq. (2)) and the standard deviation is taken from the distribution of the yield strength (eq. (3)).
Such distribution was written below.
�
� �������� ����������� �����
��log�𝑆𝑆� �� � ��� � � � (4)
� ��
�����

The idea of developing the distribution given by eq. (4) was presented in Fig. 1.

3. Experimental results and verification of proposed method

The proposed method was verified for tests results of steel S355J2+C (Strzelecki & Tomaszewski, (2016)) and
stainless steel 1.4301 (Strzelecki et al., (2019)). Fatigue tests were performed by rotating bending machine, which was
presented and verified in paper Strzelecki & Sempruch, (2012). Loads were applied with 28.5 Hz and 50 Hz
frequencies for S355J2+C and 1.4301, respectively. Test results were presented in Fig. 2 (a) – (b) and Fig 3 (a) – (b)
for S355J2+C and 1.4301, respectively. The estimated parameters for eq. (1) and (2) are shown in Table 1. A standard
method is named S-N curve obtained acc ISO-12107, (2012) with at least 30 specimens. The tensile tests were
performed by an Instron 8874 testing machine, which was presented in Fig. 2 (c) and 3 (c) for S355J2+C and 1.4301,
respectively.

Table 1. Value of parameters for the estimated S-N curves.

Material Parameter Standard method Proposed method
m -0.084 -0.089
S355J2+C b 3.084 3.093
σ 0.015 0.030
m -0.089 -0.094
1.4301 b 3.118 3.137
σ 0.021 0.024
102
4 Przemysław
Przemysław Strzelecki
Strzelecki et al. / Integrity
/ Structural ProcediaProcedia
Structural00
Integrity 46 (2023) 99–104
(2021) 000–000

a S355J2+C b
Samples from fatigue tests
600

S-N curve 50%

Stress amplitude S a [MPa]

500
350 400
300

3 3 4 4 5 5 6
10 5  10 10 5  10 10 5  10 10

Number of cycles log N

c d

Fig. 2. S-N curves for S355J2+C steel for (a) 9 specimens and (b) 32 specimens, (c) histogram of yield strength with normal distribution and (d)
S-N curves on one diagram for 32 specimens and 9 specimens with standard deviation from the tensile test

The verification of the proposed method was a comparison of the S-N curve obtained for 32 and 30 samples for
S355J2+C and 1.4301, respectively, with the S-N curve obtained by the proposed method for 9 and 8 specimens for
S355J2+C and 1.4301, respectively. The estimated parameters for the proposed method (for eq. (3)) are shown in
Table 1. The S-N curves for the proposed method and standard method were presented in Fig. 2 (d) and 3 (d). It can
be seen that the S-N by the proposed method is a bit shifted to the S-N curve acc. standard method for all materials.
This is expressed in different values of parameters written in Table 1. It is worth noting that mentioned the shift caused
calculating less value of the fatigue strength, so it is conservative results.
 Przemysław
Przemysław Strzelecki
Strzelecki et al. / Procedia
/ Structural IntegrityStructural Integrity
Procedia 00 (2021)46 (2023) 99–104
000–000 103
5

a 1.4301 b
Samples from fatigue tests
S-N curve 50%
Stress amplitude S a [MPa]

500 550
450
400
350

4 4 5 5 6 6
10 5  10 10 5  10 10 5  10

Number of cycles log N

c d

Fig. 3. S-N curves for 1.4301 steel with the probability distribution for the yield strength test and the fatigue strength for 105 cycles

4. Summary and conclusion

The standard deviation for logarithm yield strength was bigger than for the fatigue strength tests in the high-cycles
region. The difference was twice for S355J2+C steel and 14 % for 1.4301 steel. So, estimated distribution acc. to
eq. (4) gives a bigger scatter of fatigue strength. Consequently, the estimated S-N curve proposed has a lower value
of fatigue strength than the S-N curve estimated by the standard method presented in ISO-12107, (2012). That fact
can be seen in Fig. 2 (d) and 3 (d) where the estimated S-N curves for 5 % probability acc. to the proposed method
has lower fatigue strength than curves from test acc. ISO standard. So, the proposed method is conservative and can
be used by engineers.

References

ASTM E-739-91. 2015. Standard Practice for Statistical Analysis of Linear or Linearized Stress-Life (S-N) and Strain-Life (ε-N) Fatigue Data.
https://doi.org/10.1520/E0739-10R15
Gope, P. 1999. Determination of sample size for estimation of fatigue life by using Weibull or log-normal distribution. International Journal of
Fatigue. 21(8), 745–752. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0142-1123(99)00048-1
Gope, P. C. 2012. Scatter analysis of fatigue life and prediction of S-N curve. Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention. 12(5), 507–517.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-012-9590-0
Hobbacher, A. F. 2008. IIW document IIW-1823-07 recommendations for fatigue design of welded joints and components. International Institute
of Welding.
ISO-12107. 2012. Metallic materials - fatigue testing - statistical planning and analysis of data.
Lewis, G., & Sadhasivini, A. 2004. Estimation of the minimum number of test specimens for fatigue testing of acrylic bone cement. Biomaterials.
25(18), 4425–4432. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2003.11.014
104 Przemysław Strzelecki et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 46 (2023) 99–104
6 Przemysław Strzelecki / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000

PN-EN 13749. 2011. Railway applications - Wheelsets and bogies - Method of specifying the structural requirements of bogie frames.
PN-EN 1993-1-9. 2007. Eurokod 3: Designing steel structures. Part 1-9: Fatigue.
Soh Fotsing, B. D., Anago, G. F., & Fogue, M. 2010. Statistical techniques of sample size estimating in fatigue tests. International Journal of
Engineering and Technology. 2(6), 477–481.
Strzelecki, P., Mazurkiewicz, A., Musiał, J., Tomaszewski, T., & Słomion, M. 2019. Fatigue Life for Different Stress Concentration Factors for
Stainless Steel 1.4301. Materials. 12(22), 3677. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12223677
Strzelecki, P., & Sempruch, J. 2012. Experimental Verification of the Analytical Method for Estimated S-N Curve in Limited Fatigue Life. Materials
Science Forum. 726, 11–16. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.726.11
Strzelecki, P., & Tomaszewski, T. 2016. Application of Weibull distribution to describe S-N curve with using small number specimens. AIP
Conference Proceedings. 1780, 020007. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4965939