Fatigue [6]

¾Fatigue is the lowering of strength or failure of a material due to

repetitive stress, which may be above or below the yield strength. For
fatigue to occur at least part of the stress in the material has to be
tensile.

¾Many engineering materials such as those used in cars, planes, turbine

engines, machinery, shoes, etc are subjected constantly to repetitive
stresses in the form of tension, compression, bending, vibration, thermal
expansion and contraction or other stresses.

¾There are typically 3 stages to fatigue failure.

¾1) a small crack is initiated or nucleates at the surface and can include
scratches, pits, sharp corners due to poor design or manufacture,
inclusions, grain boundaries or dislocation concentrations.
¾2) the crack gradually propagates as the load continues to cycle.
¾3) a sudden fracture of the material occurs when the remaining cross-
section of the material is too small to support the applied load.
1>
 Fatigue under cyclic/repeated loading

¾ Cracks generally grow under repeated loading

¾ Trucks passing over bridges,

¾ Sailboat rudders
¾ Bicycle pedals
¾ Shift gears

¾ May result failure or fracture: fatigue fracture

¾ Periodic inspections required for fatigue critical systems

¾ Thermal fatigue: repeated heating and cooling can

cause a cyclic stress due to differential thermal
expansion and contraction
2>
 Fatigue
¾ Repeated, also called cyclic loads resulting in cyclic
stresses can lead to microscopic physical damage.

¾ Accumulation of this microscopic damage with continued

cycling is possible until it develops into a macroscopic
crack such as cracks that may lead to failure

¾ Fatigue: Damage progression to failure due to repeated or

cyclic loading at amplitudes considerably lower than
tensile or yield strengths of material under a static load

¾ Estimated to causes 90 % of all failures of metallic

structures (bridges, aircraft, machine components, etc.)

¾ Fatigue failure is brittle-like (relatively little plastic

deformation) - even in normally ductile materials. Thus
sudden and catastrophic!
3>
Dynamic Loading and Fatigue

4>
 Definitions and Concepts

¾ Constant amplitude
stressing
¾ Mean stress
¾ Stress amplitude (half
of the range)Æ
variation about the
mean
¾ Stress ratio R,
Amplitude ratio
¾ Completely reversed
stressing, R = -1

5>
 Fatigue Tests

¾ Types of stresses for fatigue tests:

axial (tension – compression)
flexural (rotating/bending)
torsional (twisting)

¾ Flexural stress Sb *

M b . 32 P .l .32
Sb = =
3 3
π .d 2 .π . d
* for round specimens 6>
 S-N Curves

¾ The most important fatigue data for engineering

designs are the S-N curves, which is the Stress-Number
of Cycles curves.

¾ In a fatigue test, a specimen is subjected to a cyclic

stress of a certain form and amplitude and the number of
cycles to failure is determined.

¾ The number of cycles, N, to failure is a function of the

stress amplitude, S.

¾ A plot of S versus N is called the S-N curve.

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 S-N Curves

(a) Typical S-N curves for two metals. Note that, unlike steel, aluminum
does not have an endurance limit. (b) S-N curves for common polymers

8>
 S-N Curves
Fatigue Limit:
¾ For some materials such as BCC steels and Ti alloys,
the S-N curves become horizontal when the stress
amplitude is decreased to a certain level.
¾ This stress level is called the Fatigue Limit, or
Endurance Limit.

Fatigue Strength:
¾ For materials, which do not show a fatigue limit such as
Al, Cu, and Mg (non-ferrous alloys), and some steels with
a FCC structure, fatigue strength is specified as the stress
level at which failure will occur for a specified number of
cycles, where 107 cycles is often used.

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Fatigue Strength vs Tensile Strength

10>
 Fatigue Life

¾ Fatigue life: indicates how

long (number of cycles) a
component survives a
particular stress.

Fatigue strength is applicable to a component with No endurance limit. It

is the maximum stress for which fatigue will not occur at a particular
number of cycles, in general, 108 cycles for metals.

Endurance ratio: the endurance limit is approximately ¼ to ½ the tensile

strength.
endurance limit (fatigue strenght)
Endurance ratio = ≈ 0.25 − 0.5
tensile strength
11>
 Factors Affecting Fatigue Life
¾ Magnitude of stress (mean, amplitude...)

¾ Quality of the surface (scratches, sharp transitions and

edges).

¾ Solutions:
¾ Polishing (removes machining flaws etc.)
¾ Introducing compressive stresses (compensate for
applied tensile stresses) into thin surface layer by “Shot
Peening”- firing small shot into surface to be treated.
High-tech solution - ion implantation, laser peening.
¾ Case Hardening - create C- or N- rich outer layer in
steels by atomic diffusion from the surface. Makes
harder outer layer and also introduces compressive
stresses
¾ Optimizing geometry - avoid internal corners, notches
etc.
12>
 Fatigue failures
¾ The fracture surface near the origin is usually smooth
(Beach mark-crack initiation point). The surface
becomes rougher as the crack increases in size.
¾ Striations (concentric line patterns): the slow cyclic
build up of crack growth from a surface intrusion.
Striations are on a much finer scale and show the
position of the crack tip after each cycle.
¾ Granular portion of the fracture surface: rapid crack
propagation at the time of catastrophic failure.

13>
 Fatigue failures

Typical fatigue-fracture surface on metals, showing beach marks.

Magnification: left, 500x; right, 1000x. Source: Courtesy of B.J.
Schulze and S.L. Meiley and Packer Engineering Associates, Inc.
14>
 Fatigue Crack Propagation (FCP) Testing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPYw8hRkyVA

Cambridge Polymer Group has developed an automated FCP imaging system

that images the sample every 500 cycles of cyclic loading, without any user
input required. The FCP imaging system is independent of the load frame
performing the cyclical loading, and is therefore simple to transfer and set up
at a new location. In the video above, every second is equal to 2000 cycles
of loading. Each frame is analyzed to measure the crack length, using the black
dots to guide the measurement. 15>
 Standards relating to Fatigue Test
¾ American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM):

• ASTM E466 - Standard Practice for Conducting Force

Controlled Constant Amplitude Axial Fatigue Tests
of Metallic Materials (2015)

• ASTM E606 - Standard Test Method for Strain-Controlled

Fatigue Testing (2012)

• ASTM E1823 - Standard Terminology Relating to

Fatigue and Fracture Testing (2013)

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 Fatigue Test Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhUclxBUV_E 17>
 References

¾ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_(material)
¾ Kelly, S. M. Fatigue.
http://sv.rkriz.net/classes/MSE2094_NoteBook/97ClassProj/anal/kelly/fatigue.html
¾ ASTM International. ASTM E466 - Standard Practice for Conducting Force
Controlled Constant Amplitude Axial Fatigue Tests of Metallic Materials.
West Conshohocken, 6 p., 2015.
¾ ASTM International. ASTM E606 - Standard Test Method for Strain-Controlled
Fatigue Testing. West Conshohocken, 16 p., 2012.
¾ ASTM International. ASTM E1823 - Standard Terminology Relating to Fatigue
and Fracture Testing. West Conshohocken, 25p., 2013.
¾ Kalpakjian, S.; Schmid, S. R. Manufacturing Engineering and Technology,
6th Edition. Prentice-Hall, 1197p. (2009).
¾Metals Handbook, ASM. Mechanical Testing and Evaluation, volume 8.
ASM, 9th edition, 1981.

Notas de aula preparadas pelo Prof. Juno Gallego para a disciplina Lab. Materiais de Construção Mecânica II.
® 2016. Permitida a impressão e divulgação.
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