Prediction of Nonlinear Evolution of Fatigue Damage Accumulation From an Energy-Based Model

Abstract

An energy-based framework is developed for welded steel and AL6061-T6 for assessment of nonlinear evolution of fatigue damage accumulation along fatigue life. The framework involves interrogation at continuum using a newly developed experimental procedure to determine the cyclic damaging energy to reveal that the accumulated fatigue damage evolves nonlinearly along cycle in case of low cycle fatigue but has somewhat linear relationship with cycle in case of high cycle fatigue. The accumulated fatigue damage is defined as the ratio of the accumulated cyclic damaging energy to the fatigue toughness, a material property and hence remains the same at all applied stress ranges. Based on the experimental data, a model is developed in order to predict cyclic damaging energy history at any applied stress range. The predicted fatigue damage evolution from the energy-based model are found to agree well with the experimental data.