4 - Fatigue test

❖ Fatigue is the lowering of strength or failure of a material due to repetitive

stress that may be above or below the yield strength.
❖ It is a common phenomenon in load-bearing components in cars and
airplanes, turbine blades, springs, crankshafts and other machinery,
biomedical implants, and consumer products, such as shoes, that are
subjected constantly to repetitive stresses in the form of tension,
compression, bending, vibration, thermal expansion, and contraction, or
other stresses.

30
4-1-Fatigue failures typically occur in three stages.
- First, a tiny crack initiates or nucleates often at a time well after loading begins.
Normally, nucleation sites are located at or near the surface, where the stress is at a
maximum, and include surface defects such as scratches or pits, sharp corners due
to poor design or manufacturing, inclusions, grain boundaries, or regions of high
dislocation density.
-Next, the crack gradually propagates as the load continues to cycle.
-Finally, a sudden fracture of the material occurs when the remaining cross-section
of the material is too small to support the applied load.
4-2-Fatigue failures are often easy to identify.

❖ The fracture surface particularly near the origin-is typically smooth.

The surface becomes rougher as the original crack increases in size and may be
fibrous during final crack propagation.

❖ Microscopic and macroscopic examinations reveal a fracture surface including

a beach mark pattern and striations (Figure 1-13).
Figure (1-13) Schematic
representation of a fatigue
fracture surface in a steel shaft,
showing

-the initiation region,

-the propagation of the fatigue

crack (with beach markings),

-and catastrophic rupture when

the crack length exceeds a critical
value at the applied stress.
 4-3-Fatigue method

▪ A conventional and older method used to measure a material’s resistance to

fatigue is the rotating cantilever beam test (Figure 1-14).
▪ One end of a machined, cylindrical specimen is mounted in a motor-driven chuck.
A weight is suspended from the opposite end.
▪ The specimen initially has a tensile force acting on the top surface, while the
bottom surface is compressed.
▪ After the specimen turns 90°, the locations that were originally in tension and
compression have no stress acting on them.
▪ After a half revolution of 180°, the material that was originally in tension is now
in compression.
34
 Figure (1-14) The rotating cantilever beam fatigue test.

The maximum stress acting on this type of specimen is given by

 where L is the distance between the bending force location and the support,
F is the load, and
d is the diameter.
After a sufficient number of cycles in a fatigue test, the specimen may fail.

Generally, a series of specimens is tested at different applied stresses. The results are presented
as an S-N curve (also known as the Wöhler curve), with the stress (S) plotted versus the number
of cycles (N) to failure (Figure 1-15).

Figure (1-15) The stress-number of cycles to failure (S-N) curves

for tool steel and an aluminum alloy.

36
 4-4 Results of the Fatigue Test

❖ Generally, the fatigue test can tell us how long a part may survive or the maximum
allowable loads that can be applied without causing failure.

❖ The endurance limit (Fatigue limit), which is the stress below which there is a 50%
probability that failure by fatigue will never occur, is our preferred design criterion.

❖ -For some ferrous (iron base) and titanium alloys have a fatigue limit, thus, the S– N
curve (Figure 1.16 a) becomes horizontal at higher N values.
❖ -Most nonferrous alloys (e.g., aluminum, copper, magnesium) do not have a fatigue
limit, in that the S–N curve continues its downward trend at increasingly greater N
values.
37
Figure (1-16) (a) a material that displays a fatigue limit and (b) a material that
does not display a fatigue limit.
Fatigue life tells us how long a component survives at a particular stress.
For example, if the tool steel (Figure 1-15) is cyclically subjected to applied stress of 90,000
psi, the fatigue life will be 100,000 cycles.
Fatigue strength is the maximum stress for which fatigue will not occur within a particular
number of cycles, such as 500,000,000. The fatigue strength is necessary for designing with
aluminum and polymers, which do not have endurance limits.
In some materials, including steels, the endurance limit is approximately half the
tensile strength. The ratio between the endurance limit and the tensile strength is known as
the endurance ratio:

The endurance ratio allows us to estimate fatigue properties from the tensile test.
Factors affecting fatigue
❖ -Most materials are notch sensitive, with the fatigue properties particularly
sensitive to flaws at the surface.
❖ -Design or manufacturing defects concentrate stresses and reduce the
endurance limit, fatigue strength, or fatigue life.
❖ -Sometimes highly polished surfaces are prepared in order to minimize the
probability of a fatigue failure.
❖ -Shot peening is a process that is used very effectively to enhance the
fatigue life of materials.

❖ Small metal spheres are shot at the component. This leads to residual
compressive stress at the surface similar to the tempering of inorganic
glasses as shown in the figure below. 40
Shot peening process

41
Application of Fatigue Testing:
The maximum stress during compression may be less than the maximum tensile
stress. In other cases, the loading may be between a maximum and minimum
tensile stress; here the S-N curve is presented as the stress amplitude (σa) versus
the number of cycles (N) to failure.
❖ The stress range, σr, is the difference between the maximum and minimum
stress in a cycle

42
❖ Stress amplitude (σa) is defined as half of the difference between the
maximum and minimum stresses,

❖ and Mean stress (σm) is defined as the average between the maximum and
minimum stresses

❖Finally, the stress ratio R is the ratio of minimum and maximum stress
amplitudes:

43
The applied stress may be.
1-Axial (tension-compression).
2-flexural (bending).
3-Torsional (twisting) .
And the types of loads are (see next slide Figures below):

44
(a) Reversed stress cycle, in which the stress
alternates from a maximum tensile stress (+) to a
maximum compressive stress (–) of equal
magnitude.

(b) Repeated stress cycle, in which maximum and

minimum stresses are asymmetrical relative
to the zero-stress level; mean stress 𝜎 m, range
of stress 𝜎 r, and stress amplitude 𝜎a are indicated.

(c) Random stress cycle

45
EXAMPLE PROBLEM

A cylindrical bar of 1045 steel having the S–N behavior shown in Figure (a) is

subjected to rotating–bending tests with reversed-stress cycles (b). If the bar

diameter is 15.0 mm, determine the maximum cyclic load that may be applied to

ensure that fatigue failure will not occur. Assume a factor of safety of 2.0 and that

the distance between loadbearing points is 60.0 mm (0.0600 m).

46
Figure (b) For rotating-bending fatigue tests Figure (a) Maximum stress (S) versus logarithm of the number
of cycles to fatigue failure (N) for seven metal alloys
47
❖ Solution
From Figure (a), the 1045 steel has a fatigue limit (maximum stress) of
magnitude 310 MPa.
❖ For a cylindrical bar of diameter d (Figure b), maximum stress for
0

rotating–bending tests may be determined using the following

expression:

When σ is divided by the factor of safety (N), the above equation will be

48
Example : A fatigue test was conducted in which the mean stress was
50 MPa and the stress amplitude was 225 MPa.

(a) Compute the maximum and minimum stress levels.

(b) Compute the stress ratio.
(c) Compute the magnitude of the stress range.
Solution
(a) Given the values of Ϭm (50 MPa) and Ϭ a (225 MPa) we are asked
to compute Ϭ max and Ϭ min.

Simultaneously solving these two

expressions leads to

49
(b) the stress ratio R is determined as follows:

(c) The magnitude of the stress range Rr is determined using Equation

50