The elasto-plastic point method to estimate fatigue lifetime of notched metallic materials under variable amplitude multiaxial fatigue loading

The present paper deals with the formulation and implementation of a novel fatigue lifetime estimation technique suitable for designing notched components against multiaxial fatigue. This fatigue assessment procedure was devised by combining the Modified Manson-Coffin Curve Method and the Shear Strain-Maximum Variance Method with the elasto-plastic Point Method. The accuracy of the approach being proposed was checked against a large number of experimental results that were generated by testing notched cylindrical samples of medium-carbon steel En8. These tests were run under proportional/non-proportional constant/variable amplitude biaxial loading, with the effect of non-zero mean stresses and different frequencies between the axial and torsional stress/strain components being also investigated. The results from this validation exercise demonstrate that the novel multiaxial fatigue assessment methodology being proposed is highly accurate, with its systematic usage resulting in predictions falling within an error factor of 2. This remarkable level of accuracy is very promising especially in light of the fact that this approach can be applied by directly post-processing the results from elasto-plastic Finite Element (FE) models solved using commercial codes.