A new high-cycle fatigue criterion applied to out-of-phase biaxial stress state. (Q5954228)

In this paper a new high-cycle fatigue criterion based on the critical plane approach for multiaxial non-proportional loading is presented. The mean directions of the principal stress axes are determined by averaging the instantaneous values of the principal Euler angles, through appropriate weight functions. The mean position is calculated by adopting a weight function, which accounts for the effect of the maximum principal stress. This allows to predict the orientation of the critical plane, where to perform the fatigue failure assessment. A fatigue failure criterion assumes as a fatigue parameter a combination of normal and shear stress components, acting on the critical plane. Moreover, the orientation of the critical plane is based on fatigue crack growth mechanisms in the early stage (crack nucleation). By means of the angle between the weighted mean direction of the maximum principal stress and the normal to the critical plane, the crack initiation can be dominated by tensile or shear mechanisms. The criterion is applied to the case of in-phase or out-of-phase sinusoidal biaxial normal and shear stress states. The obtained theoretical prediction of the fatigue limit state good agrees with relevant experimental data for brittle (hard) metals. A similar comparison between experimental and theoretical results is also presented for other common critical plane criteria.