Mechanical Testing of Metals

Fatigue Test
Fatigue Failure:
A metal subjected to a repetitive or fluctuating stress will fail at a stress much lower than that required to
cause fracture on a single application of load. Such a failure is called Fatigue failure.

Fatigue is distinguished by three main features:

 Loss of Strength
 Loss of Ductility
 Increased uncertainty in strength and service life

Factors causing fatigue failure:

 A maximum tensile stress of sufficiently high value.
 A large amount of variation or fluctuation in the applied stress.
 A sufficiently large number of cycles of the applied stress.
Additional factors are Stress concentration; Corrosion; Temperature; Overload; Metallurgical structure;
Residual stress; Combined stress.

Different Types of Fluctuating Stress:

Principle of Fatigue Test:

The test specimen is mounted on the machine and subjected to rotation. Due to rotation, the upper
surface of the test specimen is subjected to tension, whereas the lower surface experiences compression. The
rotation of specimen continues till fracture occurs. The test is performed for a given metal at varying cyclic
stresses. Thus a graph is obtained between cyclic stress and number of cycles. Such a graph is referred to as S-
N curve.

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Endurance Limit (Fatigue Limit) : Maximum stress that a material can withstand for an infinite number of
cycles without failure is called Endurance Limit. The significance of the Fatigue limit is that if the material is
loaded below this stress, then it will not fail, regardless of the number of times it is loaded.

Nature of S-N curve in terms of mild steel and aluminium and endurance limit:

For a few important engineering materials such as steel and titanium, the S-N curve becomes
horizontal at a certain limiting stress. Below this limiting stress, the material can withstand an infinite number
of cycles without failure. This limiting stress is called Endurance limit or fatigue limit.

But most non ferrous metals like aluminium, Magnesium, copper alloys have an S-N curve which
slopes gradually downward with increasing number of cycles. These materials do not have a true fatigue limit
or Endurance limit because the S-N curve never becomes horizontal.

Fatigue Life: The number of cycles required for a material to fail at a certain stress.
Fatigue Strength: The stress required to cause failure by fatigue in a given number of cycles.

Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF):

 It is associated with relatively high loads that produce not only elastic strain but also some plastic
strain during each cycle.
 Fatigue life is relatively short. Fatigue failure occurs at less than about 10 to 10 cycles. (N < 10 to
4 5 4
5
10 cycles)

High Cycle Fatigue (HCF):

 It is associated with relatively lower loads that produce totally elastic strain.
 Fatigue life is relatively long. Fatigue failure occurs at greater than about 10 to 10 cycles. (N > 10 to
4 5 4
5
10 cycles).

Examples
Door springs, aircraft wings are subjected to repeated loads, oil and gas pipes are often subjected to static
loads will cause fatigue.

Factors affecting Fatigue Properties:

Surface finish:
 Scratches dents identification marks can act as stress raisers and so reduce the fatigue properties.
 Electro-plating produces tensile residual stresses and have a detrimental effect on the fatigue
properties.
Temperature:
 As a consequence of oxidation or corrosion of the metal surface increasing, increase in temperature
can lead to a reduction in fatigue properties.
Residual stresses:
 Residual stresses are produced by fabrication and finishing processes.

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 Residual stresses on the surface of the material will improve the fatigue properties.
Heat treatment:
 Hardening and heat treatments reduce the surface compressive stresses; as a result the fatigue
properties of the materials are getting affected.
Stress concentrations:
 Fatigue strength is seriously affected by the presence of stress raiser in the specimen. Notches, holes,
keyways etc which are found to initiate the fatigue failure are all stress raisers.
 Besides, the change in section and surface irregularities like machining cracks, porosity, inclusions,
decarburised regions etc have their own influences in this regards.

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