Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

9-13-2020

Department

Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

Abstract

Fatigue life estimation under variable amplitude (VA) loading is still a major unresolved engineering problem. The linear cumulative damage rule (LDR) based methodology is inadequate to predict fatigue damage or useful remaining life if the fatigue loading is complex (not sinusoidal). In addition, the LDR based damage estimation methods rely on statistics of various cycle counting methodologies (e.g., rain-flow counting) where the load interaction effects are being ignored. It has been shown that the damage estimation fails if two load-time (load-cycle) histories with different temporal dynamics have the same or similar load spectra. A robust damage estimation should take the temporal dynamics, i.e., the overload/underload information, stress memory statistics, into consideration. In this extended abstract, the shortcomings of the LDR based methods will be presented through a comparison where two VA load spectra with similar stress history and cycle counting statistics were applied to a singled-edge notched beam specimen.

COinS