A modified highly stressed volume (HSV) method to predict fatigue life considering the critical crack size

Fatigue life prediction is important in engineering design to ensure structural reliability. However, it is difficult to achieve an accurate fatigue life prediction from a smooth specimen to a notched specimen with the traditional Highly Stressed Volume (HSV) method, as it is based on just one empirical evaluation of the HSV. A modified HSV method is proposed in this study, which is combined with the concept of critical distance, and the critical crack size of smooth specimens is obtained by observing the fracture surface. The predicted P-S-N curves of single-notched specimens and multi-notched specimens show a good agreement with experimental data compared with the traditional HSV method and the Theory of Critical Distance method.