Lecture 1

Introduction to
CAE Fatigue

Introduction to
ANSYS nCode DesignLife

1 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Agenda

• Review basics of fatigue

− what is fatigue
− physics of fatigue cracks
− fatigue testing

• Introduce basics of CAE durability

− fatigue approach
• stress-life
• strain-life
− crack-growth

• Introduce basics of fatigue analysis

− stress cycle
− cycle counting
− damage accumulation

2 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Introduction

• Fatigue damage is the initiation and/or growth of a crack under fluctuating loading
− progressive damage

− component seems to lose strength and get tired after multiple load applications, hence the name
“fatigue”

− almost all structural components are subjected to cyclic service

σy
Stress

Fatigue failure occurs after

repeated loadings even
though the stress is low
Time

3 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Fatigue Life

• Fatigue failure is typically viewed as a 3-stage phenomena

− stage 1: crack initiation
− stage 2: stable crack growth
− stage 3: fast fracture

• Fatigue life = crack initiation + crack growth

− no precise transition from crack initiation to crack growth

4 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Crack Initiation

• Surface flaws initiate at tiny dislocations in the material’s microstructure

− very localized stress concentration
− practically undetectable and impossible to model using FE

• These tiny surface flaws create persistent slip bands that propagate along
the maximum shear plane under alternating stress
− bands slip back and forth like a shifting deck of cards

Alternating Stress

Crystal surface

Slip bands form

along planes of
maximum shear
giving rise to
surface extrusions
and intrusions

5 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Stage I Cracks

• Slip bands grow into micro-cracks (Stage I cracks)

− small compared to material’s microstructure
• difficult to detect, invisible to the naked eye
− grow in direction of maximum shear stress
• 450 to the direction of the applied load

6 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Stage II Cracks

• After traversing 2-3 grain boundaries, the micro-cracks grow into

fatigue cracks (Stage II cracks)
− large compared to material’s microstructure
− crack itself physically interrupts the flow of stress
• stress concentration causes plastic stresses at the crack tip
− local plastic stress causes the crack to change direction
• growth is now propagated by cyclic plastic stress at the crack tip
• oriented perpendicular to maximum principal stress

7 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Fatigue Failure

• If sufficient energy exist, Stage II cracks continue to grow until tensile failure occurs
− most lack sufficient energy to propagate across grain barriers
• crack “arrests”

slip bands micro-cracks fatigue cracks tensile failure

initial crack

fatigue damage
producing striations
(aka “beach marks”)

fast final fracture due

to tensile failure - no
striations

8 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 CAE Fatigue Analysis

• CAE can predict fatigue damage in a virtual environment

− evaluations can be performed during design phase
− can assess cumulative damage caused by multiple loads

5 box trick

9 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 5 Box Trick

• CAE fatigue analysis are built around five basic actions

− so called “5 box trick”

solver post-processing

inputs > pre-processing

10 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 CAE Durability Approaches

• Two basic approaches for performing CAE durability analysis

− fatigue approach
− fracture mechanics
• also known as crack-growth or crack-life method

• Fatigue approach
− use calculated stresses/strains and material fatigue curve to predict cycles to failure (life)
− two basic fatigue analysis approaches
• stress-life (SN)
– uses elastic stresses
• strain-life (EN)
– uses elastic-plastic strains

11 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 CAE Fatigue Methods

• Stress-life (SN) uses elastically calculated stress and stress vs. cycle fatigue failure
curves (S-N curves)
− assumes stress drives fatigue
− only applicable high cycle fatigue
• greater than 100,000 cycles for ductile metals

• Strain-life (EN) uses elastic-plastic strains and Strain Life Relationship Equation
− assumes local plastic strains drives fatigue
− applicable to low and high cycle fatigue

12 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Stress-Life Approach

• Stress-life (SN) fatigue method assumes that fatigue damage is produced by

fluctuating stresses
− only applicable to elastic stress, so limited to limited to low stress/high cycle applications
• usually more than 100,000 cycles to failure for ductile metals
− fatigue life is based on alternating stress range and Wohler fatigue curve (S-N curves)
− original numerical fatigue approach
− vast amount of industry experience
− simple technique
• often can be checked with hand calculations

13 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 S-N Curves

• S-N curves are plots of elastic stress versus total cycles to failure
− usually log-log plots
− S (y-axis): either full stress amplitude or alternating stress range
− N (x-axis): total cycles to failure (initiation and propagation)

14 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Strain-Life Fatigue

• Strain-life fatigue (EN) assess fatigue damage using cyclic strain ranges and the
Strain Life Relationship equation
− applicable to both low cycle and high cycle applications
• stresses less than or greater than yield
− uses local elastic-plastic strains
• either directly calculated or adjusted from elastic results
− predicts crack initiation

• Relatively new fatigue analysis technique

− usage began approximately 30 years ago
− difficult to implement with hand calculations
• limited to CAE

15 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Strain-Life Fatigue

• EN method is based on assumption that material behavior at notch root is

analogous to small test specimen under strain controlled conditions

Δ
overall body remains elastic

local deformation is strain controlled

behavior of notched component with localized plasticity

Δ
can be simulated using a smooth test specimen

16 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Strain Life Relationship

Coffin-Manson’s equation
 f
 2 Nf   f 2 Nf 
b c

 p 2 E
 f 2 Nf 
c

Basquin’s equation

 e f
 2 Nf 
b

2 E

17 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Cyclic Loading Terms

• Fatigue damage is caused a changing stress/strain state

− sine curve is a simple representation of cyclic loading

Smax
Smax = maximum stress
Sa Smin = minimum stress
Sm = mean stress
Sm S Sa = alternating stress
ΔS = stress range
Sa

Smin

− stress ratio (R) = Smin/Smax

− amplitude ratio (A) = Sa/Sm Common loadings:
fully reversed: R = -1, A = infinity
zero to maximum: R = 0, A = 1

18 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 CAE Cycle Counting

• If multiple cyclic loadings occur, magnitude and number of each stress/strain

reversal must be determined
− minimum stress, maximum stress, mean stress, and number of cycles associated with
each stress reversal must be determined

• Rainflow is the most common cycle counting algorithm

− applicable to stress-life (SN) and strain-life (EN) methods
− automated in DesignLife

• Rainflow counts number of closed strain loops

19 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Rainflow Cycle Counting

• Rotate strain history 90 degrees and plot vs time

• Cyclic behavior can be visualized as rain flowing off of a pagoda roof

fatigue cycles are:

a-d, b-c, e-f, and g-h

20 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Rainflow Cycle Counting

• Rainflow cycle counting can also be visualized as water draining from valleys
− determine peaks and valleys of stress/strain during cycling
− invert stress/stain history and imagine it is filled with water
− drain water - start at deepest valley and repeat until all valleys are drained
• total depth drained = stress range
• mean depth = mean stress

500 500 500

500

400 400 400

400

300 300 300

300

450
200 200 200
200

225
100 100 100 100

time time time time

invert and reorder to imagine filled with drain water starting
start with absolute max water at lowest valley

21 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Rainflow Cycle Counting

• Rainflow approach divides any arbitrary load history

into groups (“bins” or “blocks”) of similar loading
− rainflow matrix can be visualized using a histogram

• Each group represents a number of loading cycles

for a particular stress range and mean stress

22 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Damage Accumulation

• Multiple cyclic loading conditions have a cumulative fatigue

effect

• Rainflow groups the loading history into blocks loading blocks

− each block causes a fraction of the total damage (“partial damage” or
“damage fraction")

damage fraction Di  

ni Di = damage fraction caused by loading block (i)
ni = number of applied cycles of loading block (i)
Ni Ni = available fatigue life for loading block (i)

23 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Damage Accumulation

• Damage fraction is the amount of life that has been “used” by a block of loading

ni actual
damage fraction  
Ni allowable

• If ni = 1e5 and Ni = 1e6, the damage fraction is 0.10

− 10% of the total fatigue life has been used up by loading block i

24 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Miner’s Rule

• Miner’s Rule assumes that the total damage is simply the linear summation of
the partial damages
n
total damage D  
n1 n2 n 3 nn ni
 
N1 N 2 N 3
  
Nn
 
i 1 N i

− first proposed by Palmgren in 1924 and further refined by Miner in 1945

− also referred to as “Linear Damage Rule”
− applicable to both SN and EN
− widely used
• simple to implement and as accurate as more complicated methods
− load sequence is not considered
− failure occurs when sum of damage fractions equals the fatigue life
• D is equal to or greater than 1.0
− automated in DesignLife

25 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Accuracy

• Fatigue calculations are much less precise than strength calculations

− statistical, not deterministic, phenomenon
− empirical rules
− order of magnitude errors in life estimates are common
− large Factor of Safety (FS) typically assumed to ensure safe design
• FSs of 10 are common
• CAE fatigue can enable smaller FSs

26 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Summary

• Fatigue cracks start at surface dislocations and are driven by reversing local plastic flow

• Fatigue failure occurs at stress levels insufficient to cause failure in a single application
− damage is cumulative and unrecoverable
− difficult to detect progressive deterioration during fatigue process
• catastrophic failures can occur without warning

• Fatigue failure is typically viewed as a 3-stage phenomena

− stage 1: crack initiation
− stage 2: stable crack growth
− stage 3: fast fracture

• Fatigue life = crack initiation + crack growth

27 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential

 Summary

• Component Fatigue testing is relatively slow and expensive

• CAE durability analysis predict fatigue in a virtual environment

− characterize capability of a component to survive cyclic service
− known as “fatigue analysis”
− fatigue life calculations are less precise than strength calculations

• Two basic CAE durability analysis approaches

− fatigue approach
• stress-life (SN) or strain-life (EN)
− fracture mechanics
• crack life
− Rainflow method commonly used to count cycles for both SN and EN
− Miner’s Rule commonly used to accumulate damage for SN and EN

28 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. September 7, 2016 ANSYS Confidential