Creating fatigue curve for steel machine elements using fatigue test method with gradually increasing stress amplitude

Abstract

Fatigue curve presents the relation between stress (mean stress, maximum stress or stress amplitude) and the number of stress cycles till a machine element is completely broken. This curve is served as the important basis of design as well as lifetime prediction for machine elements. In order to create a fatigue curve, the traditional fatigue test method is applied to specimens using a cyclic stress with constant amplitude. However, this method has disadvantages such as the experimental results could not be used because the specimens break before reaching the expected stress amplitude, or the tests may be stopped before the specimens break because of limitation of time. To overcome this hurdle of the traditional method, an experimental method using cyclic stress with gradually increasing amplitude was proposed to build the fatigue curve for steel machine elements. A comparison of the estimated fatigue curve and experimental data was performed showing that the fatigue curve of machine elements bearing the cyclic stress with constant amplitude can be created by applying the fatigue test method with gradually increasing stress amplitude.