KING FAHD UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM & MINERALS

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

ME 217: Material Lab

Student Name Mohammed S. ALHARBI

Student ID # 201763790

Section # 13

Experiment No. & Title NO.6 & Fatigue Test

Instructor Name Dr. Morsi Mohamed Mahmoud

Date 27 Oct 2019

Cover Page 0

Introduction & Objectives 3

Experimental Procedure 3

Results & Discussion 10

Conclusion 4

Total 20
Introduction & Objectives

A steel rod can fail without elongation when it subjected to repeated pressure (loading and unloading)
which called fatigue failure. Fatigue failure is the major reason for failure in mechanical components which are
subjected to dynamic and fluctuating stress (cyclic loading). Several of the usual examples of fatigue failure
experienced by the structural component are train wheels, machines and gas turbine discs. Even though that
polymers and ceramics are vulnerable to unexpected fatigue failures, these failures are considered the most
insidious for metallic materials. These failures are generally happened in three stages which are crack initiation,
crack propagation and fast fracture respectively. Crack initiation, which are cycles needed to start a crack. Also,
they normally caused by imperfections and/or dislocation pile-ups. For the machine components that contain no
pre-existing cracks, most of fatigue life is spent in this stage. Crack propagation or crack growth, which is
necessary cycles to grow the crack stably. In bridges, ships, aircraft fuselage, and pressure vessels and other
large structures or welded parts, they usually have pre-existing cracks. Due to this, most of fatigue life is spent
in growing the pre-existing crack to the critical size until the final fracture. In this experiment, only the fatigue
where most of the fatigue life is spent in the initiation stage will be used. Fast fracture, which it is not in the
Fatigue Life expression since it occurs quickly. Even in ductile materials normally the fatigue happened in
brittle-like failures. As shown in figure 1, at regions of high-stress concentrations, the fatigue cracks always
start. Polishing specimen surface carefully, to remove the surface flaws that act as stress concentrators and
subjecting the sample to constant amplitude alternating stress levels are the two basics matter to start fatigue
test. There three of applied stresses which tension-compression, bending and twisting. In this experiment, the
tension-compression stress will be used, as shown in figure 2. As shown in figure 3, on the left is the machine
that will be used in the experiment to apply the stress and on the right is the control unit where the frequency is
controlled and the number of cycles is calculated. The data is condensed into the S-N curve, which represents
the stress (S) versus the number of cycles(N), as shown in figure 4. Because each data point is many hours of
testing, Fatigue tests tend to be time-consumer. As shown in figure 4, what is termed the knee, which is the right
portion of curves is the important part of the curve because it can that identify the Fatigue Limit or the
Endurance Limit. The fatigue life indicates how long the component can last when stress is frequently applied
to the substance. The endurance limit is the stress below which fatigue failure never happens. In metals such as
brass and aluminum when there is no fatigue limit, another stress value called fatigue strength will be defined.
Fatigue strength is described as the stress corresponding to specific life cycle generally taken as 100 million
cycles. The objectives are to familiarize with the fatigue test and its extracted data as S-N curves. Also, using
this curve to find fatigue strength, fatigue life and fatigue limit. Finally, understanding the characteristics of the
surface fractured by this failure.
FIGURE 1: MAHMOUD,M, M. (2019). FIGURE 2: MAHMOUD,M, M. (2019). FATIGUE TEST.
FATIGUE TEST. RETRIEVED FROM CAMS RETRIEVED FROM CAMS

FIGURE 3: MAHMOUD,M, M. (2019). FATIGUE TEST. FIGURE 4: MAHMOUD,M, M. (2019). FATIGUE TEST. RETRIEVED
LABORATORY. FROM CAMS

Experimental Procedure
 The experiment starts with
Stress VS Logarithm Cycles to Failure
measuring steel specimen that is
350
provided by the instructor. Second, the
300
250 specimen should be mounted in the
Sress(MPa)

200 rotating bending machine, as shown in

150 figure 5. Third, the safety guard will be
100
fitted. Fourth, the weight and the
50
0
measure distance that is needed to
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
calculate the bending moment will be
Cycles to Failure (Number)
recorded. Fifth, the counter should be
zeroed; the machine should start slowly accelerating the motor until the cycle rate reached 60 Hz. After a while,
when the specimen is broken, the number of cycles to failure should be written. Lastly, the test should be
repeated with a different weight one more time.

FIGURE 5: MAHMOUD,M, M. (2019). FATIGUE

TEST. RETRIEVED FROM CAMS

Results & Discussion

i.

ii.

From the graph, it seemed that the fatigue strength at 5 × 105

cycles is approximately 280 MPa.
iii.

As shown in the plot above, the fatigue life for 200 MPa is approximately 2 ×106
cycles.

iv. As has been written in the introduction that if the plot

does not have what is termed the knee, then the fatigue
strength is applicable for this metal. It is usually taken as
corresponding to 108 cycles.

The fatigue strength is approximately 143 MPa.

C. As shown in figure 6 a sample for a brass that has experienced a fatigue test compare to figure 7 for the
same metal but has experienced tensile test. Although brass has a ductile fracture, the sample surface in the
fatigue test exhibit brittle fracture, which is clear from its smooth surface. This indicates that even normally
ductile materials can have brittle-like failures during fatigue failures. Also, because brittle-like failures occur
suddenly, this can lead to disastrous results.

D. Fatigue failures are generally happened in three stages which are crack initiation, crack propagation and
fast fracture respectively.

E. Fatigue cracks usually start at the surface, because crack

initiation cannot be overcome easily. FIGURE 7: MAHMOUD,M, FIGURE 6: MAHMOUD,M,
M. (2019). TENSILE M. (2019). FATIGUE TEST.
LABORATORY.
F. Mean stress is Stress TEST. LABORATORY.

ratio is

σm = (Smax + Smin)/2 R = Smin / Smax.

G. Because always treating the surface finish and make it less number of cracks will increase the lifetime of the
sample.

H. S-N plot of the data

S-N
500
450
400
350
Stress (MPa)

300
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 20000000 40000000 60000000 80000000 100000000 120000000
Cycle to failure (N)

I.

ln S vs ln N
6.2
6.1
6
5.9
Stress

5.8
5.7
5.6
5.5
5.4
8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Cycles to failure

J. As has been written in the introduction that if the plot has what is termed the knee, then Endurance limit is
applicable for this metal.
It is 290 MPa.

K.

Fatigue strength at 2.0x 104 is approximately 454 MPa.

Fatigue strength at 6.0x 105 is approximately 321 MPa.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, in this experiment, the S-N curve, which has extracted from fatigue test, has been used to find
endurance limit for steel alloy, fatigue strength for brass alloy and some values for fatigue strength for both.
Some of the extracted data are the fatigue strength for the brass alloy is approximately 143 MPa and the
endurance limit for steel alloy is 290 MPa. Also, it has been known that metals at fatigue failures they have a
brittle fracture, which makes vulnerable to sudden destruction. The results look as expected because the brass
alloy has the graph of smooth shape where there is no knee, in contrast to steel alloy. However, because fatigue
test is known to require enormous points to sketch the S-N curve, the lack of points might be considered as
source error.