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Proceedings of IMECE2012
2012 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition
November 9-15, 2012, Houston, Texas, USA
The user inputs a small value, δ, for the The Labview VI was tested by a frequency
frequency increment of the shaker excitation signal sweep from 30 Hz to 80 Hz on a preliminary
frequency. The increment must be smaller than the specimen with a resonant frequency of about 61 Hz,
smallest frequency increment of the digital data as illustrated in Figure 5. After one such sweep, the
acquisition system. It is chosen so that changes in initial estimate of the specimen resonant frequency
frequency are small enough that the system does not for each subsequent fatigue test specimen was
lose resonance but not so small that changing usually very accurate.
resonance can’t be tracked fast enough. The The resonant frequency tracking capability was
frequency increment for this research was tested as illustrated in Figure 6 for a specimen with
δ = 0.20 Hz . The sample rate must be at least 20 a resonant frequency of about 82 Hz. Figure 6a
times greater than the specimen resonant frequency shows a sweep from a lower frequency to the higher
in order to accurately capture the waveform and resonant peak and Figure 6b shows a sweep from a
measure the accelerometer and strain gage higher frequency to the lower resonant peak. This
amplitudes. test assures that the frequency increment is correct
The Labview VI continuously compares the and the resonant frequency tracking sub VI is
current accelerometer amplitude (Ai) to the previous working correctly.
one (Ai-1) and adjusts the excitation frequency to
maintain the accelerometer amplitude at the
resonant peak. A series of true/false statements
accomplishes this task, as illustrated in Figure 4.
The accelerometer amplitude at a particular time
(Ai) is compared to the amplitude at the previous
time (Ai-1). If Ai is larger than Ai-1, the excitation
frequency continues to change until Ai is less than
or equal to Ai-1. If Ai is less than Ai-1, the frequency
increment is reversed and the excitation frequency
changes by –δ. This process continues until the
resonant frequency changes enough to indicate
failure of the specimen (3%). Labview was
programmed to write the data to a text file. a. Sweep Up to Resonance of 82 Hz.
Microsoft Excel was then used to calculate the
number of cycles to failure.
RESULTS
Figure 7 shows results of a typical fatigue test.
At this particular maximum strain (stress)
amplitude, the fatigue test was completed in
approximately 30 minutes. Figure 7 shows one of
the few cases when the strain gage survived the
entire test. Figure 7a shows that the resonant
frequency was constant for the first 60% of this test
and then began to increase at about 2.5x105 cycles. b. Strain Gage Signal Amplitude During Fatigue
Figure 7b shows that as the resonant frequency
started to decrease, the strain amplitude also started
to decrease. This is not surprising since the
electrodynamic shaker was operating in open loop
and changing resonant frequency changes the
loading on the shaker. Figure 7c shows the reliable
accelerometer amplitude that was used to track
resonance.
The motivation for this research was a
concurrent study of statistical scatter in HCF data.
A stochastic theory of the fatigue life with tolerance
limits is described in a companion paper [9].
Parameters used in the probabilistic prediction of
fatigue were based on tensile test results, so the c. Accelerometer Signal Amplitude During Fatigue
maximum strain on the surface of the bending
Figure 7. Accelerated High Cycle Fatigue Typical
fatigue specimen shown in Figure 7b was averaged
Results for One Specimen
over the specimen cross-section.
Figure 8 shows the fatigue test results for 104 the purpose of the study was to investigate
specimens at cross – section – averaged stress statistical scatter of the data, no effort was applied
amplitudes between 69 and 89 MPa (10 and 13 to make all the stress amplitudes the same.
kpsi), along with a power – law regression curve. However, there were 44 specimens within the stress
Most of the specimens failed between 1.4x105 and range 82.0 ± 4.14 MPa (11.9 ± 0.6 kpsi) . Figure 9
5.8x105 cycles. About one hour of graduate shows a Weibull cumulative distribution curve fit to
assistant labor was required for each specimen, these 44 specimens along with the accelerated HCF
including machining the specimen, installing the data.
strain gage and conducting the test. All 104
specimens were tested in about eight weeks during CONCLUSIONS
the summer of 2011. Accelerated, low cost High Cycle Fatigue
testing utilizing a small, inexpensive
electrodynamic shaker has been demonstrated. Two
actions were taken in the specimen design to
prevent fretting damage at the shaker head
attachment point. (1) The specimen geometry was
designed to move the maximum strain away from
the support fixture that attaches to the shaker head.
(2) A fixture fabricated from soft redwood firmly
attached the specimen to the shaker head. There
was no evidence of fretting damage in any of the
104 specimens.
A Labview control VI was designed to track
Figure 8. Accelerated HCF data from 104 resonant frequency as it decreases due to specimen
Specimens with Power – Law Regression, fatigue damage. Resonant dwell fatigue testing has
Cross – Section – Averaged Stress been completed at stress levels between 69 and 89
MPa (10 and 13 kpsi) on 104 6061-T6 aluminum
thin beam specimens. The specimen nominal
resonant frequency was 260 Hz, allowing 5.0x105
cycles in about 30 minutes. Operating in open loop,
the strain amplitude remained approximately
constant until the resonant frequency decreased by
about 3%. At this time, a small fatigue crack was
just visible in the location of maximum stress.
Since the strain gage usually fails after about 25%
of the fatigue life, an accelerometer was installed to
provide a way to monitor strain amplitude and track
the decrease in resonant frequency.
Even though acceptable results are reported
Figure 9. Weibull Cumulative Distribution of 44 here for open-loop amplitude control, it might be
Specimens with Cross – Section – possible to incorporate a feedback controller to
Averaged Stress Amplitude decrease the uncertainty of the acceleration
82.0 ± 4.14 MPa (11.9 ± 0.6 kpsi) amplitude during fatigue tests. There are many
challenges to closed loop control since the specimen
Figure 8 illustrates significant variability of the must continually scan frequency inside the loop.
stress amplitudes of the 104 test specimens. Since Resonance in a high Q system is marginally stable.