FATIGUE

Fatigue of Materials (Cambridge Solid State Science Series)

S. Suresh
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998)

Salient Features
Materials subjected to repetitive or fluctuating stress fails at a stress much
lower than that required to cause fracture in a single application of a load
It is estimated that fatigue accounts for ~90% of all service failures due to
mechanical causes
Fatigue failure occurs without any obvious warning
Fatigue results in fracture which appears brittle without gross deformation
at fracture
On a macroscopic scale the fracture surface is usually normal to the
direction of the principal tensile stress
Fatigue failure is usually initiated at a site of stress concentration (E.g.:
macroscopic: notch; microstructural: inclusion)

Sufficiently high maximum tensile stress

Factors
necessary to
cause fatigue
failure

Large variation/fluctuation in stress

Sufficiently large number of stress cycles

Factors which play an important role in fatigue

Stress concentration
Corrosion
Temperature
Microstructure
Residual stress
Stress state

Types of stress cycles and parameters characterizing them

Stress

r max min

Compressive Tensile

Completely
reversed cycle of
stress

a
r

Cycles

Tensile stress

Purely tensile
cycles

r
2

max
m
min

r max min

max min
2

max min
2

Stress ratio R

min
max

Amplitude ratio A

a 1 R

m 1 R

Cycles

 Compressive

Tensile

Stress

Random stress
cycles

0
Cycles

S-N Curve
Engineering fatigue data is usually plotted as a S-N curve
[S: stress; N: number of cycles to failure (usually fracture), plotted as
log(N)]
The stress plotted : a, max, min
Stress values plotted are nominal values
(no account for stress concentrations)
Each plot is for a constant m, R or A
Most fatigue experiments are with m = 0 (rotating beam tests)
S-N curves deal with fatigue failure at a large number of cycles (> 105)
Stress < y but microscopic plasticity occurs
Stress life
For low cycle fatigue (N < 104 or 105 cycles) tests are conducted in
controlled cycles of elastic + plastic strain (instead of stress control)

S-N Curve

Bending stress (MPa)

400

300

Fatigue limit

Mild steel
200

Aluminium alloy

No fatigue limit fatigue strength

is specified for and arbitary
number of cycles (~ 108 cycles)

100

105

106

107

108

Number of cycles to failure (N)

Fatigue limit = Endurance limit

Steel, Ti show fatigue limit

Al, Mg, Cu show no fatigue limit

S-N Curve: Basquin equation

S-N curve in the high cycle region is described by the
Basquin equation:
a is the stress amplitude, p & C emperical constants

N C
p
a

S-N curve is determined using 8-12 specimens

Starting with a stress of two-thirds of the static tensile strength of the
material the stress is lowered till specimens do not fail in about 107 cycles
Usually there is considerable scatter in the results

Strain controlled cyclic loading