Fatigue strength model (stress range)

See the section on the Fatigue Life Model for detailed information on how the
fatigue strength model is calculated.
The model does not work for materials with large variations in any of the attributes
that are used as part of the calculation. Hence, the model is provided for metals,
but not for any 'generic' records in the database.

Fatigue Life Model

The Fatigue Life Model is based around the Basquin and Coffin-Manson
approximations for high and low cycle fatigue life, which can be summarized as:

where
is the strain change from cyclic loading
f is the fatigue ductility coefficient,
f is the fatigue strength coefficient,
b is the fatigue strength exponent,
c is the fatigue ductility exponent
and Nf is the number of cycles to failure.
A full explanation of this equation can be found in Reference 1.

Derivation of Values
In CES, the Fatigue life is presented as an S/N curve (applied stress vs no. of cycles
to failure). In order to do this the strain based equation is modified:

E* : This is an approximation to the modulus of the material in the portion of the

stress-strain curve beyond the yield strength. Its value is calculated from the
relation:

as schematically represented below:

f : the fatigue ductility coefficient, after Reference 1, is defined as the conventional

logarithmic ductility, or monotonic fracture ductility, f, defined as:

where RA is the Reduction in Area of the test piece after a tensile test. For the
purposes of the fatigue model in CES, f is approximated (using the relations in
Reference 2) as:
where n is the nominal strain, stored in CES as Elongation.
c : the fatigue ductility exponent, after Reference 1, is given a value of -0.6
f : the fatigue strength coefficient, after Reference 1, is defined as the failure
strength, (the fracture stress with necking corrections), approximated from
Reference 2 as:
b : the fatigue strength exponent, is calculated by substituting the Fatigue
strength, e, from the CES database into the stress based version of Basquin's law.
The number of cycles to failure for the Fatigue strength, Nf is defined as being
107 cycles, giving:

Dependence on Stress Ratio

The Fatigue Model makes use of the modified Goodman's relation (Reference 3), to
make predications of fatigue life at different stress ratios.

Goodman's Relation
At a given Number of Cycles to Failure, the modified Goodman's relation may be
expressed as:

where a0 is the fatigue strength at zero mean stress, m is the applied mean stress
and a is the applied alternating stress.
The stress ratio R is defined as the ratio of the minimum applied stress to the
maximum applied stress. Recasting this in terms of the mean and alternating stress,
and substituting into Goodman's relation gives the relation used in CES.

The Model
This is the model as it actually appears in the CES database (Reference 4). The
'normal' model is used for metals in the database.
Limitations of the model:

The model is provided for two main reasons. Firstly to provide the ability to make a
reasonably accurate selection of a material where the no. of cycles to failure is
important. The second reason is to provide a working example of how the
'functional' data facility in CES can be implemented.
The model has been kept as simple as reasonably possible, and suffers from a
number of limitations, which include but are not limited to:
1. The model is poor at predicting the fatigue life of very high ductility
materials.
2. The prediction of life for brittle materials is very sensitive to variations in
elongation.
3. The model performs poorly for many materials below 100 cycles to failure.
4. The model does not work for materials with large variations in any of the
attributes that are used as part of the calculation. Hence, the model is not
provided for any 'Generic' records in the database.

As with all estimated data in CES, the values generated by the model are flagged as
estimated in both CES Selector and CES Constructor and should not be used for
design purposes.
Normal model:

Type: Maths functional range

Parameter Constraints
Parameter

Low Limit

High Limit

No. of Cycles

10

1e8

Stress Ratio

-1

0.9

Equation: [Tensile Strength]/((1+[Stress Ratio])/(1-[Stress Ratio])+([Tensile

Strength]/ ((([Tensile Strength]*(1+([Elongation]/100))) - [Yield strength]) /((ln(1+
([Elongation]/100))) - ([Yield strength]/(1000*[Young's Modulus])))*ln(1+
([Elongation]/100)) * ((2 * [No. of Cycles])^-0.6)+([Tensile Strength]*(1+
([Elongation]/100)))*(2*[No. of Cycles])^(log([Fatigue strength @ 10^7 cycles]/
([Tensile Strength]*(1+([Elongation]/100))))/log(2e7)))))
References
1. ASM Handbook, Volume 19, Fatigue and Fracture
2. Ashby & Jones, Engineering Materials I, Butterworth Heinemann, 1996
3. Boyer, H, Atlas of Fatigue Curves, ASM, 1999
4. CES Selector software, Granta Design Limited, Cambridge, UK