A cumulative damage model for fatigue life estimation of high‐strength steels in high‐cycle and very‐high‐cycle fatigue regimes

Abstract

ABSTRACTA cumulative fatigue damage model is presented to estimate fatigue life for high‐strength steels in high‐cycle and very‐high‐cycle fatigue regimes with fish‐eye mode failure, and a simple formula is obtained. The model takes into account the inclusion size, fine granular area (FGA) size, and tensile strength of materials. Then, the ‘equivalent crack growth rate’ of FGA is proposed. The model is used to estimate the fatigue life and equivalent crack growth rate for a bearing steel (GCr15) of present investigation and four high‐strength steels in the literature. The equivalent crack growth rate of FGA is calculated to be of the order of magnitude of 10−14–10−11 m/cycle. The estimated results accord well with the present experimental results and prior predictions and experimental results in the literature. Moreover, the effect of inclusion size on fatigue life is discussed. It is indicated that the inclusion size has an important influence on the fatigue life, and the effect is related to the relative size of inclusion for FGA. For the inclusion size close to the FGA size, the former has a substantial effect on the fatigue life. While for the relatively large value of FGA size to inclusion size, it has little effect on the fatigue life.