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Fatigue Strength and The S-N Diagram Study Notes for

Mechanical Engineering
117 upvotes 16 comments

Fatigue is a phenomenon associated with variable loading or more precisely to

cyclic stressing or straining of a material. Just as we human beings get fatigue
when a specific task is repeatedly performed, in a similar manner metallic
components subjected to variable loading get fatigue, which leads to their
premature failure under specific conditions.
Fatigue loading is primarily the type of loading which causes cyclic variations in the
applied stress or strain on a component. Thus any variable loading is basically a
fatigue loading. In reality, most mechanical components experience variable
loading due to
 • Change in the magnitude of applied load Example: punching or shearing
operations
• Change in direction of load application Example: a connecting rod -
• Change in point of load application Example: a rotating shaft.

There are different types of fatigue/variable loading. The worst case of fatigue
loading is the case known as a fully-reversible load. One cycle of this type of
loading occurs when a tensile stress of some value is applied to an unloaded part
and then released, then a compressive stress of the same value is applied and
released.
The fatigue behaviour of a specific material, heat-treated to a specific strength
level, is determined by a series of laboratory tests on a large number of apparently
identical samples of that specific material.

Fatigue Failure

• Machine elements subjected to fluctuating stresses usually fail at stress

levels much below their ultimate strength and in many cases below the yield
point of the material too. These failures occur due to a very large number of
stress cycle and are known as fatigue failure.
• A fatigue failure resembles to a brittle fracture and occurs without any
noticeable plastic deformation or necking.
• It's sudden occurrence, without any noticeable warning, makes it dangerous.
The fracture surfaces are flat and perpendicular to the stress axis.
• Fatigue failure begins with a microscopic crack that occurs due to some
discontinuity (oil holes, keyways, screw threads etc.), surface irregularities
due to machining (scratches, stamp marks, inspection marks etc.) or material
defects. This crack propagates due to fluctuating stresses, grows continually
and finally, sudden fracture takes place.

Types of Cyclic Stress

• For design purpose, only maximum and minimum value of stress is important
and not the waveform
• Important types of cyclic stresses depending upon the level of minimum and
maximum stress between which the stress fluctuates.
Completely Reversed Stress

• Extreme values of stress are of equal magnitude and opposite nature with
mean equal to zero

Repeated Stress

• Stress varies from zero to certain maximum value (nature of stress does not
change)

Fluctuating Stress

• The minimum value and maximum value of stress is of same nature (tensile
or compressive)

Alternating Stress
 • Stress changes its nature and magnitude of extreme values of tensile and
compressive stress is not same.

Note: All variable stresses can be considered to be made of two components –

static component called mean stress (s m ) and a variable component called stress
amplitude (s a ).

• Mean Stress =

• Stress Amplitude =

• Stress Range=

• Stress Ratio=

• Amplitude Ratio,

Fatigue Curve (S-N Curve) & Endurance Limit

• Specimen subjected to constant bending moment is rotated at a very high-

speed due to which fibres of the specimen (except those on neutral axis)
undergo repeated stress reversals (maximum tensile stress to maximum
compressive stress).
• Stress-time plot is repeated for a number of similar specimens, subjecting
them to different values of stress and number of stress reversals that the
specimen survives before fracture are counted.
• First test is performed by subjecting the specimen to stress, below ultimate
tensile strength and subsequent tests are performed at decreased levels of
stress.
S-N Diagram

• The S-N Diagram Tests on several specimens are conducted under identical
conditions with varying levels of stress amplitude.
• The cyclic stress level of the first set of tests is some large percentage of the
Ultimate Tensile Stress (UTS), which produces failure in a relatively small
number of cycles. Subsequent tests are run at lower cyclic stress values until
a level is found at which the samples will survive 10 million cycles without
failure.
• Results of the tests are plotted between stress (S) and the number of cycles
(N), generally on a log-log scale. S-N Curve is shown in figure below:

• The ordinate of the S-N curve is called Fatigue Strength (S f ), which can be
defined as the maximum stress that the material can withstand for a
specified number of stress reversals.
• For ferrous metals and their alloys, S-N curve becomes horizontal after 10 6 to
10 7 cycles, which means that the material can survive an infinite number of
stress reversals if the induced stress is below this level.
• Stress corresponding to this horizontal line is called endurance limit or
fatigue limit.
◦ The zone below 10 3 cycles is considered as low cycle fatigue
◦ the zone between 10 3 and 10 6 cycles is high cycle fatigue with a finite
life and
 ◦ beyond 10 6 cycles, the zone is considered to be high cycle fatigue with
infinite life.

• Fatigue or Endurance Limit (S' e ) can be defined as the maximum amplitude of

completely reversed stress that the standard specimen can sustain for an
unlimited number of cycles without fatigue failure.
• Low Cycle Fatigue: The body of knowledge available on fatigue failure from
N=1 to N=1000 cycles is generally classified as low-cycle fatigue.
• High Cycle Fatigue: High-cycle fatigue, then, is concerned with failure
corresponding to stress cycles greater than 10 3 cycles.(Note that a stress
cycle (N=1) constitutes a single application and removal of a load and then
another application and removal of load in the opposite direction. Thus N= ½
means that the load is applied once and then removed, which is the case with
the simple tensile test.)

Note: In the absence of experimental fatigue data, following relations are

sometimes used:

• For Steel, S' e = 0.5 S ut

• For Cast Iron, S' e = 0.4 S ut

Endurance Limit Modifying Factors

• The endurance limit of any machine element cannot match the values
obtained from test due to variation in material, quality of manufacture,
environmental conditions and design.
 • Therefore, the endurance limit obtained by the test is modified using some
factors to obtain more reasonable results.
• Endurance Limit of a particular machine part can then be estimated using
following relation:

where S e = Endurance Limit of the specimen

• K surf = Surface Finish Factor

• K size = Size Factor
• K load = Load Factor
• K rel = Reliability Factor
• K temp = Temperature Factor
• Kf = Fatigue Stress Concentration Factor

Surface Finish Factor (K surf )

• The surface of the rotating beam specimen is highly polished but most of the
machine members don’t have that kind of surface finish requiring a
modification in the endurance limit obtained by rotating beam experiment.
• Surface finish factor depends upon the manufacturing process used and
ultimate tensile strength of the material. Its value can be selected with the
help of chart shown in figure below

Size Factor (K size )

 • Standard rotating beam specimen has a diameter of 7.6 mm and modification
factor, K size must be applied for machine elements of different sizes. Its value
may be taken as:

Size Factor, K size Diameter (d) of Machine Element (mm)

1.0 d ≤ 7.6 mm

0.85 7.6 ≤ d ≥ 50 mm

0.75 d ≥ 50 mm

Load Factor (K load )

• In rotating beam test, the specimen is subjected to bending load and

completely reversed stress cycles but many machine members are subjected
to different types of loads and stress cycles.
• To account for this, endurance limit is modified using load factor, K load and its
value can be taken as:

Load Factor, K load Type of Completely Reversed Load

1.0 bending

0.85 tensile

0.59 torsional

Reliability Factor (K rel )

• Endurance limit obtained experimentally is the mean value and it varies even
for same material and conditions.
• Reliability is a statistical measure of the probability that component will not
fail. Reliability factor to modify endurance limit can be taken as:

Reliability (%) Reliability Factor, K rel

50 1.000

90 0.897

95 0.868
99 0.814

99.9 0.753

99.99 0.702

99.999 0.659

Temperature Factor (K temp )

• Increase in temperature accelerates the effect of fatigue. Therefore

Temperature factor, K temp is used to modify the experimentally obtained
endurance limit. It can be taken as:

K temp = 1.0 for temperature ≤ 300ºC

= 0.5 for temperature > 300ºC
Fatigue Stress Concentration Factor (K f )

• To account for the effect of stress concentration in case of cyclic loading,

endurance limit is modified by dividing it with the fatigue stress concentration
factor, which is given by,

• Value of this factor is less than the value of theoretical stress concentration
factor, K t , since all the materials are not equally sensitive to the notches.
• K f gives the reduced value of stress concentration factor for less sensitive
materials.

• The value of K f is always greater than one and endurance limit of standard
specimen is divided by it, unlike all the other modification factors.
• For q = 0, K f =1 and for q=1, K f = K t . q can be estimated from figure below
which is based on the experimental data.
 Fig: Notch Sensitivity
Thanks
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117 upvotes 16 comments

Tags : GATE ME GATE ME Machine Design

Posted by:

Mallesham Devasane
Aug 22 GATE ME

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