Faculty of Engineering

(Mechanical Department)
Strength of Materials I (MSM21A)
Fatigue (Chapter 13)
Research Assignment
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Fatigue

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to do the following

• Understand the difference between fatigue and static failure

• Understand the danger of fatigue failure

• Understand the situations when fatigue failure is a risk

• Explain the various types of loading used in fatigue testing.

• Identify the features that distinguish the fatigue semi logarithm S-N curves for
iron and its alloys, titanium and its alloys and non-ferrous materials.
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Simple stresses and strains

Fatigue failure of materials

https://www.britannica.com/technology/bridge-engineering
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Fatigue

Fatigue failure of material

• Fatigue: when material is subjected to repeated loads, it fails before reaching
the yield point.

• Examples of fatigue loading:

- Cyclic
- Alternating
- Fluctuating
- Repeated
- Dynamic
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Fatigue

Background
• It was prompted by observations made by engineers of failure of
components in service, at loads that were well below their tensile
strength.

• Thus, the use of the word fatigue for failure of materials below
their strengths when exposed to cyclic loading,

• It is known presently that the materials do not fatigue, but rather

fail due to the gradual propagation of internal or surface defects,
cracks or flaws, as a result of the imposed cyclic loads.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• This occurs in three stages:

• Crack initiation, which takes a much longer time

• Crack propagation
• sudden failure.

• Crack propagation is identified by striations and dull surfaces while sudden failure is
characterised by shiny, smooth surfaces due to sudden tear.

• About 75% of all in-service failure of machine components is estimated to

occur due fatigue.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• The main causes of fatigue failure is the presence of flaws, cracks or

defects on the surface of a component.

• It has been established that over 90% of all cases of fatigue failure
arise from the presence of surface flaws in machine components.

• The defects, flaws and cracks will arise due to casting and/or
machining defects or may be introduced by stress raisers.

• Stress raisers exist in the form of rapid changes in geometry, and

notches.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• It is necessary in design to therefore ensure that sharp edges due to sharp

changes in dimensions or the existence of notches are avoided.

• One good way of minimising the possibility of fatigue failure is to ensure

very high tolerances in the surface finish of machine components, that may
therefore be considered to be devoid of surface cracks. Careful machining
and polishing is therefore recommended.

• The other way is to ensure gradual changes of geometry, and the rounding
off of notches
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• Casting that avoids the presence of inclusions, flaws and porosity is also
recommended.

• In addition, non-destructive testing of machine components is recommended,

in a bid to detect those parts that may already have fatigue causing features
in them.

• This is done in the form of dye testing, magnetic hysteresis testing, ultrasonic
testing and thermography.

• Handling of machine parts should also be done carefully in order to avoid

introducing fatigue causing features in the parts.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• In order to establish the fatigue behaviour of materials, experimental testing is and has been
conducted.

• This involves loading of well-prepared specimens in a manner that exposes them to cyclic
stresses with specific features.

• While sinusoidal cyclic loading is normally used, it is understood that loading in service is
varying in magnitude.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• Typically, sinusoidal fatigue testing curves fall into the following three categories:
𝜎𝑎 = 𝜎𝑚

𝜎𝑎
𝜎𝑎
Stress

𝜎𝑚
𝜎𝑚 = 0
Tension-Tension
Tension-Compression
Complete reversal

Time
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• Present day techniques do also allow variable stress amplitudes to be imposed on
specimens.

• It is also possible to collects load signals from real field loading situations and
impose them on specimens in the laboratory.

• Such field data also allows fatigue studies to be undertaken numerically in an office,
as a precursor to experimental testing.

• Software to undertake this kind of fatigue-simulation exists and is used widely by

design engineers.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• Fatigue testing regimes are characterised by they following features :

• The type of load curve (sinusoidal or random)

• The maximum stress (𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 )
• The minimum stress (𝜎𝑚𝑖𝑛 )
• The mean stress (𝜎𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 = 𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 + 𝜎𝑚𝑖𝑛 Τ2)
• The stress amplitude (𝜎𝑎 = 𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝜎𝑚𝑖𝑛 Τ2)
• The stress range [𝜎𝑟 = 𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝜎𝑚𝑖𝑛 = 2𝜎𝑎 ]
• The stress ratio (𝑅 = 𝜎𝑚𝑖𝑛 Τ𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 ), +ve or -ve
• The stress cycle
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Fatigue

Fatigue Testing Method

• In both the above two cases, the load through the depth of the specimen varies from the
neutral axis outwards. Failure is therefore not expected to occur within the specimen but on
its surface and due to the presence of flaws, as this is the position of maximum stress.

• The axial fatigue test on the other hand allows a uniform load to be applied through the
thickness of the specimen. Failure in this case will occur not as a function of location
through the thickness of the specimen, but purely due to the presence of flaws, cracks on a
specimen.
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Fatigue

Fatigue loading of material

• It is important to note that cycling in fatigue can based on axial, bending, torsion or a
combination of any one of these loads. Thermal cycling may also lead to fatigue failure

• Typical examples of components that are susceptible to fatigue failure include; shafts
(vehicles, turbines, generators and pumps), Vehicle axles, connecting rods (engines),
valves (engines) and springs (coiled and leaf springs).
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Fatigue

Fatigue Testing Method

• Full scale fatigue testing of aircraft parts is conducted using special mounting and load-
application jigs.

• Rotary fatigue bending test (in the form of cantilever or simply supported beams) is
normally carried out and has the advantage of exposing specimens to the same
maximum and minimum load amplitudes.

• Fatigue bending in a plane (without rotation) can also be carried out, with the
advantage of allowing imposition of a set mean load on the specimen at extreme
bending.
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Fatigue

Fatigue Testing Method

• Fatigue data is normally represented in the form of semi logarithm S-N curves i.e. stress
versus the 𝑙𝑜𝑔10 of the number of stress cycles.

• This generates two types of curves; one for ferrous alloys, iron, titanium, and titanium
alloys and the other for non ferrous alloys and metals such as aluminium alloys and
copper.
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Fatigue

Fatigue Testing Method

❖ Iron, titanium and their respective alloys exhibit a distinct knee and a levelling out of the fatigue curve
below a given stress and a number of stress cycles.

❖ Non-ferrous metals and their alloys, and polymers do not exhibit a distinct knee, but rather a curve
with a gradually reducing gradient.

• These two characteristics are shown below. Non Ferrous metals, their alloys and other materials

Endurance limit
Stress

Iron, titanium and their

respective alloys Knee

𝑙𝑜𝑔10 𝑁
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Fatigue

Fatigue Testing Method

Crack initiation Striations, steady
crack propagation

Striations, steady
crack propagation

Fibrous, fast crack

propagation and fracture Fibrous, fast crack
propagation and fracture

[MilellaP.P., “Fatigue and Corrosion in Metals”, Chapter 2 - Morphological Aspects of Fatigue Crack
formation and growth”, , DOI: 10.1007/978-88-470-2336-9-2, Springer-Verlag Italia 2013].
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Fatigue

Fatigue Method
• Examples of fatigue failure micrographs of the surfaces of various metals and their alloys are now shown.

Shiny and fibrous,

fast crack
propagation and
fracture

High applied load

Dull and Striations,

steady crack
propagation

[George Totten, “Fatigue Crack Propagation”, Advanced Materials & Processes, May 2008]
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K Thejane, Mechanical Department

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