Total Strain Energy Density as a Fatigue Damage Parameter

Abstract

It is shown that damage in uniaxial, multiaxial and load sequence effect can all be expressed in terms of an energy quantity termed as “total strain energy density”. It is the sum of the positive (tensile) elastic strain energy and plastic strain energy density. A failure criterion is defined which relates the total strain energy, to the number of cycles to failure through a power law relationship. The predictions of the theory are in good agreement with the experimental data.