Fatigue Failure

What is fatigue?
fatigue is the failure of a material due to variable or
fluctuating loading

What causes fatigue failures?

fatigue failures always begin with a crack
cracks and other imperfections are typically present in most
materials (manufacturing, etc.) and can propagate under
cyclic loading
new cracks can also be generated as a result of the fatigue
process and typically initiate at sites of stress concentrations
(notches, etc.)

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The Fatigue Process
There are three stages of fatigue failures
i) crack initiation
ii) crack propagation
iii) fracture due to unstable crack growth

Crack Initiation (Ductile Materials)

under cyclic loading, that contains a tensile component,
localized yielding can occur at a stress concentration even
though the nominal stresses are below Sy
this distorts the material and creates slip (or shear) bands
(localized regions of intense deformation due to shearing)
as the stress cycles, additional slip bands are created and
coalesce into microcracks
this mechanism dominates as long as Sy is exceeded
somewhere in the material

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The Fatigue Process
Crack Initiation (Brittle Materials)
materials that are less ductile, do not have the same ability to
yield and thus form cracks more easily (i.e. notch-sensitive)
most brittle materials completely skip this stage and proceed
directly to crack propagation at sites of pre-existing flaws
(e.g. voids, inclusions)

Crack Propagation
a large stress concentration is developed around the crack
tip and each time the stress becomes tensile the crack grows
a small amount
when the stress becomes compressive, zero or to a lower
tensile state, the growth of the crack stops (momentarily)
this process will continue as long as the stresses at the crack
tip cycle below and above the Sy of the material

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The Fatigue Process
crack growth is due to TENSILE stresses and grows along
planes normal to the maximum tensile stress
therefore, cycle stresses that are always compressive will not
elicit crack propagation
the rate of crack growth is very small (10-9 to 10-5 mm/cycle)
but after numerous cycles the crack can become quite large
If the fracture surface is viewed at high magnification,
striations can be observed due to each stress cycle

12,000 X magnification with

representative stress-cycle shown

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The Fatigue Process
Fracture
cracks will continue to grow as long as the tensile stresse are
sufficiently high enough and at some point, the crack
becomes so large that sudden failure occurs
patterns can be seen on the fracture surface which indicate
that failure was due to fatigue

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The Fatigue Process

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S-N Diagram
Under fluctuating stresses, the strength of the material declines and
is characterized by the S-N curve:

the fatigue strength (Sf) initially starts at a value of Sut at N=0

and declines logarithmically with increasing cycles
in some materials at 106 107 cycles, the S-N diagram
plateaus and the fatigue strength remains constant
this plateau is called the endurance limit (Se) and is very
important since stresses below this limit can be cycled
indefinitely without causing a fatigue failure
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S-N Diagram
the fatigue strength or endurance limit are typically
determined from the standard material tests (e.g. rotating
beam test)
however, they must be appropriately modified to account for
the physical and environmental differences between the test
specimen and the actual part being analyzed:

S f (or S e ) = k surface k size kload ktemperature k reliability S f (or S e )

S f (or S e ) - corrected strength

S f (or S e ) - strength determined from standardized test

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Fatigue Strength and Endurance Limit
The fatigue strength (Sf) and the endurance limit (Se) for some
materials can be found (refer to text appendices) or can be
estimated from the following relations:

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Strength Modifying Factors
Surface Factor (ksurface)
rotating beam specimens are polished to avoid additional
stress concentrations and thus rougher surfaces need to be
accounted for:

k surface = aS ut
b

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Strength Modifying Factors
Surface Factor (ksize)
rotating beam specimens are small and larger diameter
beam tend to fail at lower stresses due to the increased
probability of the material containing microscopic flaws

for rotating cylindrical parts:

2.79 d 51 mm : k size = 1.24d 0.107
51 < d 254 mm : k size = 1.51d 0.157

for non-rotating parts, an equivalent diameter obtained by

equating the volume of material stressed above 95% of the
maximum stress to the same volume in a rotating beam
specimen:
d 2 (0.95d )2
A95 = = 0.0766 d 2

4 4
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Strength Modifying Factors
A95
d equivalent =
0.0766
and then the previous set of equations can be used to
calculate ksize

for axial loading, there is no size effect

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Strength Modifying Factors
Surface Factor (kload)
fatigue tests are carried using rotating bending tests and thus
a strength reduction factor is required for other modes of
cyclic loading:

bending : kload = 1
axial : kload = 0.85
torsion : kload = 0.59

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Strength Modifying Factors
Surface Factor (ktemperature)
standardized tests are conducted at room temperature and
higher temperatures tend to cause a reduction in Sy making
crack propagation easier
two types of problems arise when temperature is a
consideration:
i) if Sf or Se is known (i.e. from tables), use:

ST
ktemperature =
S RT

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Strength Modifying Factors
ii) if Sf or Se were estimated (from previous relations),
temperature correct the tensile strength of material
(using table 7-6) before estimating Sf or Se and then
use:
ktemperature = 1

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Strength Modifying Factors
Surface Factor (kreliability)
collected data always has some variability associated with it
and depending on how reliable one wishes that the samples
met (or exceeded) the assumed strength, we use the
following correction factor:

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Creating S-N Diagrams
Somewhat different mechanisms dominate over the first 103 cycles
and the reduction in strength over these cycles is typically
estimated:
S m = S103 cycles = f S ut

where, f depends on Sut:

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Creating S-N Diagrams
The equation of the line from Sm to Sf (or Se) is:
S n = aN b

for materials that possess an endurance limit the coefficients

(a,b) can be calculated from the following two points:
S n = S m at N = 10 3
S n = S e at N = 10 6

for materials that do not possess an endurance limit, use:

S n = S m at N = 10 3
S n = S f at N = 5 x 108

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Notches and Stress Concentrations
A notch refers to any geometric contour that disrupts the stress
field through the part (e.g. hole, groove, fillet). Usually these
geometric contours are introduced to obtain engineering features
(e.g. o-ring seats, shaft steps, keyways) but unfortunately their
presence causes stress concentrations.

Under dynamic loading, the stress concentration does not

necessarily reach is full static value. The procedure is to first
determine the static stress concentration value (Kt) and then correct
it for the fatigue case.

Examples of some static stress concentrations (see Appendix A15):

a
hole: K t = 1+ 2
c
b
r
fillet: K t = A
d
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Notches and Stress Concentrations
The fatigue stress concentration factor (Kf) is defined as:

K f = 1 + q (K t 1)
K fs = 1 + qshear (K ts 1)

where q is the notch-sensitivity:

1
q= note: q is always less than 1
a
1+
r

a is the Neuber constant which is solely a function of the

material

r is the square-root of the notchs radius

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Notches and Stress Concentrations
To account for different notch geometries, we use the Heywoods
modification of the Neuber equation:
Kt
Kf =
2(K t 1) a
1+
Kt r

The following table gives values of the Neuber constant for steels
for different types of notches:

Note: for torsion, increase Sut by 20 kpsi before determining a

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Characterizing Fluctuating Stresses
Fluctuating stresses often sinusoidal, but as along as the wave has
a periodic pattern exhibiting a single maximum and minimum, its
shape is not important.

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Characterizing Fluctuating Stresses
We define the mean and amplitude of the stress wave as follows
(same procedure for both normal and shear stresses):
max + min
m =
2
min
a = max
2

These are nominal stresses which then must be adjusted for the
presence of a stress concentration:
a = K f a ,o

m = K fm m,o

The problem here is which stress concentration factor do we apply

to the mean stress component (i.e. non-fluctuating component)
(Kfm)? This depends on whether the material yields during cyclic
loading.
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Characterizing Fluctuating Stresses

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Characterizing Fluctuating Stresses
The stress concentration factor for the mean stress component
(Kfm) is defined as (applied similarly for both normal and shearing
stresses):

if K f max,o < S y K fm = K f
S y K f a ,o
if K f max,o > S y K fm =
m ,o
if K f max,o min,o > 2 S y K fm = 0

note: max,o = m ,o + a ,o
min,o = m ,o a ,o

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Fatigue Failure Criteria
Similar to the static failure analysis, a failure envelope is
constructed using the mean and amplitude stress components.

Under pure alternating stress (i.e. a only) the part should fail at Se
(or Sf) whereas, under pure static stress (i.e. m only) the part
should fail at Sut.

Thus, the failure envelope is constructed on a a-m plot by

connecting Se (or Sf) on the a-axis with Sut on the m-axis:

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Fatigue Failure Criteria

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Fatigue Failure Criteria
We will look at the following two commonly used failure criteria:

Sa Sm
Modified-Goodman: + =1
S e S ut
2
Sa Sm
Gerber: + = 1
S e S ut

Both of these are used in conjunction with the Langer first-cycle

yield criterion:

Sa Sm
Langer (yielding): + =1
Sy Sy

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Fatigue Failure Criteria
If we replace the strengths Sa and Sm with the stresses na and nm
can replace (where n is the factor of safety), the factor of safety can
be solved for:

1
Modified-Goodman: nf =
a m
+
Se S ut

2
2
1 S 2 S
Gerber: n f = ut a 1 + 1 + m e , m > 0
2 m Se S ut a

Sy
Langer (yielding): ny =
a +m

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Fatigue Failure Criteria
General Solution Procedure:
determine the fully corrected endurance (or fatigue) limit Se
(or Sf)
determine nominal stresses a,o and m,o at the site of interest
apply stress concentrations Kf and Kfm to determine a and
m
calculate the factor of safety against fatigue (nf)
calculate the factor of safety against first-cycle yield (ny)
determine whether the part is at risk for failure by fatigue or
yielding

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Combination of Loading Modes
How do we proceed when the loading is a mixture of loads modes?

Assuming that all of the loading modes are in-phase with one
another:
use the fully corrected endurance (or fatigue) limit for
bending
multiple any alternating axial loads by the factor 1/kload,axial
do not have to adjust torsion loads since this is taken care of
when determining the von Mises effective stress
determine the principal stresses at the site of interest
determine the nominal von Mises alternating stress a,o and
mean m,o stress
apply the fatigue stress concentration factors Kf and Kfm
use the product of the stress concentration factors if more than
one are present at the site of interest
calculate the factor of safety (nf or ny) as before
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Example

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