Critical and Fracture Planes of 18G2A Steel Under Nonproportional Combined Bending and Torsion

Abstract

Many multiaxial fatigue failure criteria of materials are based on the critical plane approach [1, 2, 3]. In these criteria, it is assumed that the fatigue failure of material is caused by stresses and/or strains acting in one plane (called critical) within the material. The proper orientation of that plane in fatigue failure criteria based on the critical plane concept must be established for fatigue life calculation. In the paper the damage accumulation method was used to determine the critical plane orientations. In this method, the critical plane is the plane where the maximum damage degree, computed according to the selected fatigue failure criterion, is the highest. The critical plane orientations are often compared to the experimental fatigue fracture plane orientations.