UNIVERSITI KUALA LUMPUR

MALAYSIAN SPANISH INSTITUTE

ENGINEERING MATERIALS

SCB 47103

LAB 6 : Fatigue Test

NAME : MOHAMAD ADIB FAHMI BIN MAHADZIR

ID NUMBER : 54211114051

GROUP : S11-6B

LECTURES NAME : DR SHARMIWATI BINTI MOHAMMED SHARIF

DATE : 28/3/2017
OBJECTIVES

- To examine the effect of surface smoothness and fillet radius on fatigue resistance

THEORY

Fatigue is the weakening of a material caused by repeatedly applied loads. In other words,it
is the progressive, localized, and permanent structural damage that occurs when a material is
subjected to cyclic or fluctuating strains at nominal stresses that have maximum values less than
the static yield strength of the material. The resulting stress may be below the ultimate tensile
stress, or even the yield stress of the material, yet still cause catastrophic failure.

Fatigue occurs when a material is subjected to repeated loading and unloading. If the loads
are above a certain threshold, microscopic cracks will begin to form at the stress concentrators
such as the surface, persistent slip bands, and grain interfaces. Eventually, a crack will reach a
critical size, the crack will propagate suddenly, and the structure will fracture. The shape of the
structure will significantly affect the fatigue life which are square holes or sharp corners will lead
to elevated local stresses where fatigue cracks can initiate. Round holes and smooth transitions or
fillets will therefore increase the fatigue strength of the structure.
APPARATUS

1. Test piece (0.5mm & 2.0 mm)

2. Fatigue tester machine

1. Two fatigue tests needed to be completed.

2. The loading device is lowered to the same height as the drive shaft.

3. The locking nut is slided over the test piece.

4. The narrow end of the test piece is inserted in the bearing on the loading device.

5. The conical part of the test piece is slided back to the shaft and the locking nut is tightened

thoroughly using the special key.

6. The counter is set to zero.

7. The load is set to 200N and the test is started by resetting the microswitch.

8. When the fracture occurs the microswitch automatically stops the system. The number of load

changes is read and the result is noted in the table.

9. The locknut is loosen and then removed. The conical piece remaining is removed by inserting

the mandrel into the hole in the fixing shaft and driving firmly inwards.

10. The test piece is changed and the procedure is repeated (step 2 to step 9) for the another test
piece.
RESULT

Test piece RA mm LA mm A Number of changes

~ After fatigue test

~ Characteristics of fatigue :-

In metal alloys, when there are no macroscopic or microscopic discontinuities, the process
starts with dislocation movements at the microscopic level, which eventually form persistent
slip bands that become the nucleus of short cracks.

Macroscopic and microscopic discontinuities (at the crystalline grain scale) as well as
component design features which cause stress concentrations (holes, keyways, sharp changes
of load direction) are common locations at which the fatigue process begins.

Fatigue is a process that has a degree of randomness (stochastic) amd often showing
considerable scatter even in seemingly identical sample in well controlled environments.

Fatigue is usually associated with tensile stresses but fatigue cracks have been reported due
to compressive loads.

The greater the applied stress range, the shorter the life.

Fatigue life scatter tends to increase for longer fatigue lives.

Damage is cumulative. Materials do not recover when rested.

Fatigue life is influenced by a variety of factors, such as temperature, surface finish,

Some materials (some steel and titanium alloys) exhibit a theoretical fatigue limit below
which continued loading does not lead to fatigue failure.

High cycle fatigue strength (about 104 to 108 cycles) can be described by stress-based
parameters. A load-controlled servo-hydraulic test rig is commonly used in these tests, with
frequencies of around 2050 Hz. Other sorts of machines like resonant magnetic machines
can also be used to achieve frequencies up to 250 Hz.

Low cycle fatigue which is the loading that typically causes failure in less than 104 cycles is
associated with localized plastic behavior in metals; thus, a strain-based parameter should be
used for fatigue life prediction in metals. Testing is conducted with constant strain
amplitudes typically at 0.015 Hz.
The data is obtained by cycling smooth or notched specimens until failure. The usual procedure is
to test the first specimen at a high peak stress where failure is expected in a fairly short number of
cycles. The test stress is decreased for each succeeding specimen until one or two specimens do
not fail in the specified numbers of cycles, which is usually at least 107 cycles. The highest stress
at which a runout (non-failure) occurs is taken as the fatigue threshold. Not all materials have a
fatigue threshold (most nonferrous metallic alloys do not) and for these materials the test is usually
terminated after about 108 or 5x108 cycles.

CONCLUSION

It should be noted that there are several short comings of S-N fatigue data. First, the conditions of
the test specimens do not always represent actual service conditions. For example, components
with surface conditions, such as pitting from corrosion, which differs from the condition of the test
specimens will have significantly different fatigue performance. Furthermore, there is often a
considerable amount of scatter in fatigue data even when carefully machined standard specimens
out of the same lot of material are used. Since there is considerable scatter in the data, a reduction
factor is often applied to the S-N curves to provide conservative values for the design of
components.