Fatigue

We shall look at fatigue in greater detail and consider factors affecting the life of
an aircraft including safe life and fail safe structures, designing against fatigue,
the fatigue strength of components, the prediction of aircraft fatigue life and
crack propagation.
Fatigue is defined as the progressive deterioration of the strength of a material or
structural component during service such that failure can occur at much lower
stress levels than the ultimate stress level. As we have seen, fatigue is a dynamic
phenomenon which initiates small (micro) cracks in the material or component
and causes them to grow into large (macro) cracks; these, if not detected, can
result in catastrophic failure.
Fatigue damage can be produced in a variety of ways.
• Cyclic fatigue is caused by repeated fluctuating loads.
• Corrosion fatigue is fatigue accelerated by surface corrosion of the
material penetrating inwards so that the material strength deteriorates.
• fretting fatigue is caused by Smallscale rubbing movements and abrasion
of adjacent parts
• thermal fatigue is produced by stress fluctuations induced by thermal
expansions and contractions; the latter does not include the effect on
material strength of heat. Finally,
• sonic or acoustic fatigue is caused by high frequency stress fluctuations,
due to vibrations excited by jet or propeller noise.
•For aircraft in general, the requirements that the strength of an
aircraft throughout its operational life shall be such as to ensure
that the possibility of a disastrous fatigue failure shall be
extremely remote (i.e. the probability of failure is less than
10−7) under the action of the repeated loads of variable
magnitude expected in service. Also it is required that the
principal parts of the primary structure of the aircraft be
subjected to a detailed analysis and to load tests which
demonstrate a safe life, or that the parts of the primary structure
have fail-safe characteristics.
 Safe life and fail-safe structures
• The danger of a catastrophic fatigue failure in the structure of an aircraft may be
eliminated completely or may become extremely remote if the structure is
designed to have a safe life or to be fail-safe.
• In the safe life approach, the structure is designed to have a minimum life during
which it is known that no catastrophic damage will occur. At the end of this life the
structure must be replaced even though there may be no detectable signs of fatigue.
• If a structural component is not economically replaceable when its safe life has
been reached the complete structure must be written off. Alternatively, it is
possible for easily replaceable components such as undercarriage legs and
mechanisms to have a safe life less than that of the complete aircraft since it would
probably be more economical to use, say, two lightweight undercarriage systems
during the life of the aircraft rather than carry a heavier undercarriage which has
the same safe life as the aircraft.
• The fail-safe approach relies on the fact that the failure of a member in a
redundant structure does not necessarily lead to the collapse of the complete
structure, provided that the remaining members are able to carry the load
shed by the failed member and can withstand further repeated loads until the
presence of the failed member is discovered. Such a structure is called a
fail-safe structure or a damage tolerant structure.
• Generally, it is more economical to design some parts of the structure to be
failsafe rather than to have a long safe life since such components can be
lighter. When failure is detected, either through a routine inspection or by
some malfunction, such as fuel leakage from a wing crack, the particular
aircraft may be taken out of service and repaired. However, the structure
must be designed and the inspection intervals arranged such that a failure,
for example a crack, too small to be noticed at one inspection must not
increase to a catastrophic size before the next.
• Some components must be designed to have:
safe life fail-safe
• landing gear • wing skins which are
• major wing joints stiffened by stringers
• wing–fuselage joints • fuselage skins which
• hinges on all-moving are stiffened by
tailplanes or on frames and stringers;
• variable geometry the stringers and
wings frames prevent skin
cracks spreading
disastrously for a
sufficient period of
time for them to be
discovered at a
routine inspection.
 Designing against fatigue
• Various protections may be taken to ensure that an aircraft has an adequate
fatigue life.
• choice of materials
Aluminium–zinc alloys possessed high ultimate and proof stresses but were
susceptible to early failure under fatigue loading; while The naturally aged
Aluminium–copper alloys possess good fatigue resistance but with lower
static strengths.
Modern research is concentrating on alloys which combine high strength with
high fatigue resistance.
• Attention to detail design
• Stress concentrations can arise at sharp corners and abrupt changes in
section. Fillets should therefore be provided at re-entrant corners, and
cut-outs, such as windows and access panels, should be reinforced.
• In machined panels the material thickness should be increased around
bolt holes, while holes in primary bolted joints should be reamered to
improve surface finish; surface scratches and machine marks are sources
of fatigue crack initiation
• an estimation of the number, frequency and magnitude of the fluctuating
loads an aircraft encounters
• The fatigue load spectrum begins when the aircraft taxis to its take-off
position. During taxiing the aircraft may be manoeuvring over uneven
ground with a full payload so that wing stresses, for example, are greater
than in the static case. Also, during take-off and climb and descent and
landing the aircraft is subjected to the greatest load fluctuations.

• The undercarriage is retracted and lowered; flaps are raised and lowered;
there is the impact on landing; the aircraft has to carry out manoeuvres; and,
finally, the aircraft, as we shall see, experiences a greater number of gusts
than during the cruise.
• The operational requirements of aircraft differ from class to class.
The Airbus is required to have a life free from fatigue cracks of 24 000
flights or 30 000 hours, while its economic repair life is 48 000 flights or
60 000 hours; its landing gear, however, is designed for a safe life of 32
000 flights, after which it must be replaced. On the other hand the BAe
146, with a greater number of shorter flights per day than the Airbus, has
a specified crack free life of 40 000 flights and an economic repair life of
80 000 flights.
• .Of the total number of Airbus aircraft, at least 90% will achieve the
above values and 50% will be better; clearly, frequent inspections are
necessary during an aircraft’s life.
 Failure occurs as a result

Dynamic Loading
Static Loading (Alternating stress)
(mono cycle) Fluctuating or
Such as tensile test repeated stress with
time
• If we assume a column rotating at speed N=100 rpm, this means that the
stress at point A changes 100 times per minute. This type of stress is called
alternating stress or stress that varies with time.

If we plot these stresses over time

•Many airplane parts fail under stresses less than yield stress
or ultimate stress and this type of failure is called fatigue
failure
•The most important difference between failure as a result of a
static load and failure as a result of a dynamic load is that in
the case of a static load there is a warning of metal failure
when the stresses exceed the yield or ultimate stress zone, But
in failure due to fatigue, there is no warning and it occurs
suddenly, as if the material is brittle even if it is ductile, and is
caused by the pattern of fracture that occurs.
 Formed and propagated Fatigue in Metals
• machine members are found to have failed under the action of repeated
or fluctuating stresses;
• A fatigue failure has an appearance similar to a brittle fracture, as the
fracture surfaces are flat and perpendicular to the stress axis with the
absence of necking. The fracture features of a fatigue failure, however,
are quite different from a static brittle fracture arising from three stages
of development.
• Stage I is the initiation of one or more microcracks due to cyclic loading
followed by crystallographic propagation extending from two to five grains
about the origin. Stage I cracks are not normally discernible to the naked eye.
• Stage II progresses from microcracks to macrocracks forming parallel
plateau-like fracture surfaces separated by longitudinal ridges.
• These surfaces can be wavy dark and light bands referred to as beach marks
or clamshell marks, as seen in Fig. 6–1. During cyclic loading, these cracked
surfaces open and close, rubbing together, and the beach mark appearance
depends on the changes in the level or frequency of loading and the corrosive
nature of the environment.
• Stage III occurs during the final stress cycle when the remaining material
cannot support the loads, a sudden, fast fracture
• To study this phenomenon, we must know the mechanical properties of the
material and know the extent of its resistance to fatigue by stress-life method
•stress-life method
• To determine the strength of materials under the action of fatigue loads,
specimens are subjected to repeated or varying forces of specified magnitudes
while the cycles or stress reversals are counted to destruction. The most
widely used fatigue-testing device is the R. R. Moore high-speed
rotating-beam machine. This machine subjects the specimen to pure bending .
• To establish the fatigue strength of a material, quite a number of tests are
necessary because of the statistical nature of fatigue. For the rotating-beam
test, a constant bending load is applied, and the number of revolutions (stress
reversals) of the beam required for failure is recorded. The first test is made at
a stress that is somewhat under the ultimate strength of the material. The
second test is made at a stress that is less than that used in the first. This
process is continued, and the results are plotted as an S-N diagram
• a knee occurs in the graph, and beyond this knee failure will not occur, no
matter how great the number of cycles. The strength corresponding to the
knee is called the endurance limit Se, or the fatigue limit
• The endurance limit is defined as the stress range below which there is no
crack growth and the material presents an infinite life under cyclic stresses.
• Since aluminum does not have an endurance limit, normally the fatigue
strength Sf is reported at a specific number of cycles, normally N = 5(108)
cycles of reversed stress
• The S-N diagram is usually obtained by completely reversed stress cycles,
in which the stress level alternates between equal magnitudes of tension and
compression
• So the fatigue failure can be divided into finite-life region and an
infinite-life region
 Characterizing Fluctuating Stresses
Fluctuating stresses in machinery often take the form of a sinusoidal pattern
because of the nature of some rotating machinery.
Figure 2.d show the (general loading pattern) when:
σmin = minimum stress
σm = midrange component
σmax = maximum stress
σr = range of stress
σa = amplitude component
σs = static or steady stress
R= stress ratio
Figure 2
• Figure 2.e (repeated stress) when:
• σmin =0
• σm=σa
• σm=σmax /2
• σa=σmax /2

• Figure 2.f (reversed stress) when:

• σm=0
• σmax = - σmin
1- If the specimen is subjected to a static load(pure static
load), , the failure criterion is: yield stress or ultimate
stress
2- If the specimen is subjected to reversed alternating load
(σm=0) its mean pure dynamic load ,so the failure
criterion is endurance stress (It is found experimentally by
conducting fatigue testing on a large number of samples)
3- If the specimen is subjected to static and dynamic load
,then the failure criterion is determined by fatigue theories
 Fatigue Failure Criteria for Fluctuating Stress
Now that we have defined the various components of stress associated with a
part subjected to fluctuating stress, we want to vary both the midrange stress
and the stress amplitude, or alternating component, to learn something about
the fatigue resistance of parts when subjected to such situations. Three
methods of plotting the results of such tests are in general use
The early viewpoint expressed on a σm, σa diagram was that there existed a
locus which divided safe from unsafe combinations of σm and σa. Ensuing
proposals included
1-the parabola of Gerber
2-the Goodman (straight) line
3- the Soderberg (straight) line.
• The Gerber failure criterion is written as:
• The stresses nσa and nσm can replace Sa and Sm, where n is the design
factor or factor of safety. Then
Stress Concentration and Notch Sensitivity
• The existence of irregularities or discontinuities, such as holes,
grooves, or notches, in a part increases the theoretical stresses
significantly in the immediate vicinity of the discontinuity

• defined a stress concentration factor Kt (or Kts ), which is used with

the nominal stress to obtain the maximum resulting stress due to the
irregularity or defect. It turns out that some materials are not fully
sensitive to the presence of notches and hence, for these, a reduced
value of Kt can be used. For these materials, the effective maximum
stress in fatigue is,
• where Kf is a reduced value of Kt and σ0 is the nominal stress. The
factor Kf is commonly called a fatigue stress-concentration factor, and
hence the subscript f. So it is convenient to think of Kf as a
stress-concentration factor reduced from Kt because of lessened
sensitivity to notches. The resulting factor is defined by the equation

• Notch sensitivities for specific materials are obtained experimentally.