Fatigue and Sharp Impact Test

Gustavo Felicio Perruci

03/27/2022
Fatigue Theory
• Fatigue failure describes any
failure due to time-varying
(cyclic) loads.
• Fatigue failure always begin
at a crack.
• Crack present in the material
since its manufacturing.
• Crack developed over time due
to cyclic straining around
stress concentrations.
 Fatigue Theory In the WWII ship, poor quality metal with defects and poor
welding caused stress concentration and cracks.

In the Comet airplanes the square format chosen for the

Thus, it is critical that dynamically loaded parts be
windows cause high stress concentration on the corners, even
more where the bolts were located. designed to minimize stress concentrations.
 Mechanisms of Fatigue Failure
1. Crack Initiation
At the microscopic scale, when under cyclic load, there is local yielding. The local Yielding causes
distortions and slip bands in the material structure. The further accumulation of slip bands
causes the material links to rupture causing the initiation of a microcrack.

2. Crack Propagation
The stress concentration in the crack is larger than the stress concentration in the initial defect
or the stress concentration geometry of the part. The crack has a sharp tip that opens and closes
in each cycle. Therefore, due to tensile loads, when the crack is open, the crack tip grows a
small amount each cycle.

3. Sudden Fracture
The cyclic loading of the crack tip continues until the crack grows a certain amount that cause
the stress concentration at the tip to be higher than the stress that the material can handle. The
failure happens instantaneously in the very next cycle.