S. Blasón

A probabilistic interpretation of the Miner number for fatigue life prediction

The Miner number M, used as a tool for lifetime prediction of mechanical and structural components in most of the standards related to fatigue design, is generally accepted as representing a damage stage resulting from a linear progression of damage accumulation. Nonetheless, the fatigue and damage approach proposed by Castillo and Fernandez-Canteli, permits us to reject this conventional cliche by relating M to the normalized variable V, which represents percentile curves in the S-N field unequivocally associated to probability of failure. This approach, allowing a probabilistic interpretation of the Miner rule, can be applied to fatigue design of mechanical and structural components subjected to variable amplitude loading. The results of an extensive test program on concrete specimens under compressive constant and load spectra, carried out elsewhere, are used. A parallel calculation of the normalized variable V and the Miner number M is performed throughout the damage progression due to loading allowing probabilities of failure to be assigned to any value of the current Miner number. It is found that significant probabilities of failure, say P=0.05, are attained for even low values of M, thus evidencing the necessity of a new definition of the safety coefficient of structural or machine components when the Miner rule is considered. The experimental and analytical probability distributions of the resulting Miner numbers are compared and discussed, the latter still providing a non- conservative prediction in spite of the enhancement. A possible correction is analyzed.

Fatigue characterization of a crankshaft steel: Use and interaction of new models

The peculiar geometrical shape and working conditions of crankshafts make fatigue becoming responsible for most of the failure cases in such components. Therefore, improvement of crankshaft performance requires enhancing its fatigue life. In this work, the fatigue behavior of a D38MSV5S steel, used for crankshafts in compact vehicles, is investigated according to two traditional ways of analysis, namely the stress based and the fracture mechanics based approaches, though using advanced design models: On the one side, a probabilistic Weibull regression S-N model is assessed for experimental results obtained from fatigue resonance tests. On the other side, the crack growth rate curve is calculated from crack growth tests, carried out on SENB specimens, using a normalizing procedure. Specific Matlab programs are developed to facilitate the evaluation process. The information gained from both models will contribute to provide a probabilistic interpretation to the Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram.

A probabilistic approach for multiaxial fatigue criteria

Models proposed to study the multiaxial fatigue damage phenomenon generally lack probabilistic interpretation due to their deterministic form. This implies failure compulsory happening at the plane exhibiting the maximum damage value, whereas the remaining planes are disregarded. Nevertheless, the random orientation of the predominant defect evidences the possibility of failure being initiated as a function of the predominant defect presence without requiring, necessarily, maximum values of the damage parameter, which emphasizes the need of introducing probabilistic concepts into the failure prediction analysis. In this paper, a probabilistic model is presented that enables the failure probability to be found for any selected plane orientation by considering the damage gradient as a parameter for both proportional and non-proportional loading. The applicability of the model is elucidated by means of an example. Assuming the cdf for the local failure of the material to be known, the probability of failure is calculated for a cross shaped specimen in which shift between the principal stresses sigma xx and sigma yy ranges from 0o to 180o.