PROBABILISTIC MODELLING OF FATIGUE FOR RELIABILITY

PREDICTION
MINOR RESEARCH

BY:
ANUNG GRAHITO
23614301

DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS

FACULTY OF MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

INSTITUT TEKNOLOGI BANDUNG

BANDUNG
2016
 I. INTRODUCTION

Fatigue is a failure mode due to high number of cycle load that cause crack to
initiate and propagate, the crack then continues to propagate until fracture occurs.
Fatigue loading is recognized as one of the most common failure modes in mechanical
components. Fatigue failure analysis is an important issue for reliability analysis and
structures design in many industries including power generation industry, automotive
industry, aerospace industry and many others.

Earlier models of fatigue damage in literature focus on the deterministic nature

of the process, while in reality, its nature is stochastic. Conventional fatigue damage
models also tend to be conservative and produce undefinable levels of risk in
components. This has led to a need for finding new methods to predict the reliability
and remaining life of components. The advantage of the new or improved methodology
will enhance the confidence in final product, as well as cost-saving.

The stochastic in fatigue loading may result from couple of things, including
manufacturing process, geometry of the component, loading process and more others.
In manufacturing process, different manufacturers will have different tolerances in
producing the material and thus same material will have slightly different mechanical
properties. Different environment also has influence; a controlled laboratory
environment will give more precise experimental result compared to laboratory where
many distractions are present. Because of these, source of scatter, even under the
same experimental condition such as constant amplitude loading, fatigue test may
give random number of fatigue life with specific distribution.

This research is trying to provide methodology of modelling probabilistic

damage to predict reliability of a component. The methodology then need to be tested
with some examples to prove its validity.
 II. PROBABILISTIC FATIGUE
Probabilistic modelling is based on statistical simulation of a deterministic
model. The variables in deterministic model of fatigue calculation are replaced by
random variables, which is described by a statistical distribution. There are some
important aspects to model probabilistic fatigue analysis. First, the deterministic
approach of fatigue modelling, whether it is stress-life approach, strain-life, or fracture
mechanics approach. Second, cumulative damage accumulation model. And the third
is an appropriate statistical simulation model.

2.1 S-N Approach

S-N curve approach is one of the most classic approach of fatigue modelling.
It is based on data of fatigue test (S-N curves) that shows the relation between fatigue
life (cycles to failure, N) and cyclic stress amplitude, Sa, and assumes that fatigue
damage accumulation is linear. The basic equation that represents the S-N curve is
given by

= (1)

where Nf = number of cycles to failure, A is fatigue strength constant and m

represents slope of the S-N curve. Figure 1 below shows probabilistic S-N curve
 PDFs of fatigue life

S1

=
S2
S3

Nf1 Nf2 Nf3 Number of Cycles,

Nf
Figure 1 Probabilistic S-N Curve

2.2 Cumulative Damage

One thing that is very important for modelling probabilistic fatigue damage is
an accurate damage accumulation model to predict the fatigue damage. Damage
accumulation is a phenomenon where variable loading will cause damage in a
component, and it gradually accumulates over time until eventually the component
fails. One of the most widely used damage accumulation model is the linear damage
accumulation model, also known as Palmgren-Miner rule. The equation is as follows:

= (2)

Similarly, for multi-stress levels, damage accumulation can be expressed as:

= =1 = =1 (3)

where D is the total accumulated fatigue damage of the material, Di is the damage
accumulated when the component is subjected to stress level S, ni is the number of
cycles at stress level S, and Nfi is fatigue life at stress level S. Failure is assumed to
happen when the damage accumulation is equals to 1

1 (4)

The number of cycles to failure at any stress level S, can be obtained from S-
N curve. A linear relationship between S-N curve model and linear damage
accumulation model can be obtained by combining equation (1) and (2)

=

= (5)

where C represents a reciprocal fatigue strength constant, S is constant amplitude

stress level, m represents slope of the S-N curve, and n is number of cycles at stress
level S. And for multi-stress levels, the linear damage accumulation models can be
expressed as:

= =1 = =1 (6)

2.3 Reliability Prediction

One of the most well-known tools of structural reliability analysis is the
stress-strength interference method. In this method, failure is assumed to occur if the
stress(load) exceeds the strength of the component.
One of the assumption that is used in this research is the stress and strength
distribution follows normal distribution. So, the reliability of the components can be
stated as:

= 1 ( ) ( 7)

= 1 ( 2 + 2 ) (8)

where D is damage accumulation, is threshold damage, 2 is the mean and is

the variance. When the usage cycle is equal to failure life (n = Nf), then the standard
deviation of damage accumulation will be the same with standard deviation of
threshold damage accumulation ( = ). Substituting equation (6) to (8):

(
=1 )
= 1 ( ) (9)
2 + ( ( 2
=1 / ))

The equation above will be able to provide reliability prediction for a

component, it will assess component reliability by showing the reliability degradation
in relation to stress level and number of cycles.
 III. CASE STUDY
A case study is needed to test the proposed model validity. For this research,
fatigue data from Post-Panamax crane that is already operating for industry is used.
The fatigue data below shows the cycles to failure at a certain stress level.

Stress Amplitude, Cycles to Standard Deviation

Si (MPa) Failure (Nf) (Nf)
118,0 1.023.739 145.874
110,9 1.297.900 194.667
103,8 1.674.804 266.992
96,7 2.442.627 411.503
89,6 4.497.869 810.756
Table 1 Fatigue Data Post-Panamax Crane

Using data from the above table, the parameter in S-N curve can be obtained,

(1)(2)
=
(2)(1)
; m = 3,825 ( 10 )

= ; A = 8,62 x 1013 ( 11 )

1
= ; C = 1,16 x 10-14 ( 12 )

And then three stress level from the fatigue data will be tested and the
reliability will be estimated for each of those three stress level. For the first analysis,
the stress level 118 Mpa is chosen and the variability of threshold damage is
calculated using this formula:

= ( ) ( 13 )

 Using the aforementioned parameter, the variability of threshold damage at
stress level 118 Mpa is, = 0,142491. After is obtained, then using equation ()
to estimate reliability at certain stress level for any given time:

(1 =1 )
=1
0,1429412 + =1( ( / ))2
( )

Figure 2 will show the reliability plot for stress level 118 Mpa

1,00
Reliability Plot
0,95
0,90
Reliability, R

0,85
0,80
0,75 118 Mpa
0,70
0,65
0,60
0,55
0,50
0,E+00 5,E+05 1,E+06 2,E+06 2,E+06
Number of Cycles

Figure 2 Reliability Plot for stress level 108 Mpa

The plot above shows the degradation of reliability with the increase of life
cycles. In the beginning when the number of cycles are close to zero, the reliability is
almost at 100%, then it continues to decrease until the component reach number of
cycle that leads to failure.
Reliability estimation is also conducted for stress level 103,8 Mpa and 96,7
Mpa to show the difference of trend between them.
 Reliability Plot
1,00
0,95
0,90
0,85
Reliability, R

0,80 118 Mpa

0,75 103,8 Mpa
0,70 96 Mpa
0,65
0,60
0,55
0,50
0,E+00 5,E+05 1,E+06 2,E+06 2,E+06

Number of Cycles

Figure 3 Reliability Plot for Different Stress Level

The figure above shows the difference in degradation of reliability in relation

to stress level. It shows that the higher the stress level is applied to a component; the
reliability loss is faster.
For industrial purpose, the acceptance of failure probability is less than one
percent, figure below shows the probability of failure plot.
 Probability of Failure Plot
1,E+00

1,E-02
Probability of Failure

1,E-04
118 Mpa
1,E-06 103 Mpa
96 Mpa
1,E-08

1,E-10

1,E-12

Number of Cycles, Mpa

Figure 4 Probability of Failure plot for different stress level

It clearly shows that the higher the stress level is; the probability of failure is
also higher. The table below shows the maximum number of cycles when the
probability of failure is less than 1 percent. If the number of cycles exceeds these
numbers, then the probability of failure will steadily increase until the
material/component fails.

For probability of failure < 1%

Stress Amplitude Max Number of
(MPa) Cycles
118,0 540.000
103,8 940.000
96,7 1.080.000
 IV. CONCLUSION
A methodology for modelling probabilistic damage for reliability prediction was
provided in this research, which is an extension of earlier deterministic studies carried
out by the authors. The methodology then is validated by using case study from
fatigue data from Post-Panamax crane that is available.
The result of this research are based on assumption that damage accumulation is
linear phenomenon. The result of the methodology shows a plot of reliability trend in
relation with stress level and number of cycles. Five stress level and cycles to failure
data is available in this research, and three of them are used to shows the difference in
reliability plot and probability of failure. The plot of reliability for the difference
stress level suggests that the higher the stress is applied to a component; the reliability
loss is faster.
REFERENCES

1. Sundarajan, C.R. (1995). PROBABILISTIC STRUCTURAL HANDBOOK. Houston:

Chapman & Hall.
2. Fatemi, A. (2011, May 19). eFatigue. Diambil kembali dari
https://www.efatigue.com/

3. Lukens, R.W. (1983). PROBABILISTIC FATIGUE LIFE PREDICTIONS OF STRUCTURAL

COMPONENTS IN HIGH-CYCLE FATIGUE REGIMES. California: Naval Postgraduate
School
4. Rathod,V.,Yadav,P.O.,Rathore,A.,Jain,R. (2011). PROBABILISTIC MODELING OF
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Journal of Quality, Statistics, and Reliability