Statistical Assessment of Low-Cycle Fatigue Durability

Abstract

This article presents an experimental–analytical statistical study of low-cycle fatigue to crack initiation and complete failure. The application of statistical and probability methods provides for the possibility of improving the characteristics related to the structural life and the justification for the respective values of cyclic loads in the design stage. Most studies investigating statistical descriptions of crack initiation or complete failure do not analyse the distribution of the characteristics, correlation relationships, and statistical parameters of low-cycle fatigue. Low-cycle failure may be quasistatic or (due to the fatigue) transient. Materials with contrasting cyclic properties were selected for the investigation: cyclically softening alloyed steel 15Cr2MoVA; cyclically stable structural steel C45; cyclically hardening aluminium alloy D16T1. All samples were produced in a single batch of each respective material to reduce the distribution of data. The lowest values of the variation coefficient of one of the key statistical indicators were obtained using the log-normal distribution, which is superior to the normal or Weibull distribution. Statistical analysis of the durability parameters showed that the distribution was smaller than the parameters of the distribution of the deformation diagram. The results obtained in the study enable the verification of durability and life of the structural elements of in-service facilities subjected to elastoplastic loading by assessing the distribution of characteristics of crack initiation and failure and low-cycle strain parameters as well as the permissible distribution limits.