Fatigue behaviour of pitted/cracked high-strength steel wires based on the SED approach

The accuracy of the Strain Energy Density (SED) approach in assessing fatigue strength of corroded metallic wires was checked against a large number of literatue data generated by testing pitted/cracked high-strength steel cables. These experimental results were re-analysed by determining the averaged SED ranges both analytically and numerically. A value of the SED critical radius of 0.06mm was used to determine a reference scatter band suitable for assessing fatigue damage in pitted/cracked wires. The SED approach was seen to result in a level of accuracy higher than the one obtained by applying the classic nominal stress based approach.