Fatigue Failure I
Chapter 6
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Lecture topic relevance
Crack initiated at the surface Fatigue crack developed Fatigue crack developed due
by fretting corrosion which due to to variable speed drive
reduced fatigue strength.
Surface is • very loose coupling fit, • surface roughness across
where the hub repeatedly the shaft indicates the
• smoothest near the keyway drives the key against cause is fatigue forces.
root the side of the keyway • 45 degree torsional-fatigue
• rougher as crack grew failure
across shaft
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Chronology: milestone accident
Railroad car axle failure (1800s)
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Fatigue failure
• Due to variable loading, with stress
amplitudes often well below the static
yield strength of the material. Hence,
using failure theories in CH 5 can Fatigue failure of
lead to unsafe designs a pedal crank
Propagation
Slow crack propagation
Stage II Beachmarks (start/stop)
(Long period)
Rate of growth is 10-8 -
10-4 in / cycle
Fracture
Stage III
Fast, sudden (“brittle
type”) crack propagation
(rough and dull surface)
leading to final rupture
(Very fast)
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Mechanisms of fatigue failure
• Fatigue failures always begin at a crack
• Cracks may be present in raw material used in fabrication (e.g.: inclusions)
• Cracks may be introduced during fabrication
• Cracks develop over time during cyclic loading or corrosion
• Cracks develop around stress concentrations
• Corrosion will accelerate this process considerably
• If a part containing a crack is in a
corrosive environment, the crack will
grow under static stress
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Loading patterns:
a) general case, b) ship, c) commercial aircraft
• Semi-random nature
– Load waves don’t
repeat
– Limited data available
stress range
Stress patterns
Fully reversed m 0
Non zero mean m 0
Released Tension min 0
Released Compression max 0
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Fatigue Design Categories
There are four basic categories that can be treated separately..
Category I: fully reversed uniaxial stresses (Bending, axial and
torsional loadings) m 0
Category II: fluctuating uniaxial stresses (adds the complication
of mean stresses)
Fully reversed (III) and fluctuating (IV): present a recommended
“universal approach” that will work in all categories for most
common loading situations
L5-L6 L7
L8
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Mechanisms of fatigue failure
Beachmarks
(generally visible)
Fracture zone
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Beachmarks and fracture zone
with respect to load type
Schematics of fatigue-fracture
surfaces for given load type
On fracture surface, we
can ideally observe
–crack initiation site
–crack propagation region
– fast fracture site
(catastrophic failure)
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Questions to address in this lecture
No sharp separation
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Fatigue failure models
Linear elastic
Stress-life (S-N) Strain-life (-N) fracture mechanics
LEFM
• For HCF • Good for LCF • Best for LCF
• Quite inaccurate • Based on strain • Most useful to
for LCF • Capture crack predict crack
• Based on stress, initiation propagation and
to keep very low • More complex to fatigue life
• Easy but most apply • Used with non
empirical destructive testing
• To calculate in aerospace
endurance limit or
fatigue strength
In this course, we’ll use the stress-life model, the most appropriate choice for the
majority of rotating machinery operating in high cycle regime
Standard Test Methods for Spinal Implant
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Questions to address in this lecture
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Experiments
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Rotating beam test
• Specimen
• carefully machined and polished
• rotated to all points on its surface subjected to cyclic, reversed stresses
• Four-point bending configuration
• bending moment constant with no transverse shear force
• Initial tests: low weight, then progressively increase weight for each of the
subsequent tests
• Outcome: S-N curve (Log-Log coordinates) for the material reporting
• Number of cycles to failure (N)
• Applied stress inducing failure (normalized failure strength, Sf / Sut )
(With a Knee)
The knee defines an endurance limit Se' for the material, which is a
stress level below which it can be cycled infinitely without failure
Approximate endurance limit can be defined
for steels : Se' ≅ 0.5 Sut Sut < 200 ksi (6.2a)
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Steel:
Relation between Ultimate and Fatigue limit
Aluminum alloys:
Relation between Strength and Cycle
(Note the lack of a distinct Knee)
N = 5E8
• Aluminums do not have an endurance limit,
• fatigue strength Sf ’ is the average failure stress at N = 5E8 cycles
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Aluminum:
Fatigue strength and ultimate strength
The fatigue strength tracks the alloys’ static tensile strengths at a ratio of
• The axial data are seen to be at lower values than the rotating-beam data
• The fatigue strength in reversed axial loading may be from 10% to 30% lower
than the rotating-beam data for the same material
Explain why the fatigue strengths exhibited in the axial tests are typically
lower than those seen in the rotating beam test?
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Axial Fatigue tests
• AISI 4130 steel: change in slope at 10^3
LCF HCF
endurance limit
for infinite life
Figure 6-13
When a tensile mean component of stress is added to the alternating component, the material
fails at lower alternating stresses than it does under fully reversed loading
Ans:
Goodman line is safer
than Gerber line
Steels at 10^7 to 10^8 cycles
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Recap
Lecture to be continued
• Next time, L6, we’ll complete
– Answer to the questions:
• How to estimate fatigue failure strength?
• and others
Design Question
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Design Question
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