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MCEN90013
Mechanical Design
Fatigue:
a brief history
F01
Fatigue is associated with fluctuating loads.
Cracks develop in the component or structure even
though the maximum stress is well below the yield
strength of the material.
Usually the plane of the cracks is at least roughly
perpendicular to the largest principal stress.
Of great importance is the question:
If a crack forms, how quickly does it grow?
Mechanical Design
2
Versailles rail accident, 1842
Mechanical Design
On 8 May 1842 one of the trains carrying revellers on their
return journey from Versailles to Paris, having witnessed
the celebrations of the birthday of Louis Philippe, derailed
and caught fire the leading locomotive broke an axle.
It was estimated that 53 people died and around 40 were
seriously injured.
The derailment had been the result of a
broken locomotive axle.
Rankines investigation of broken axles in Britain
highlighted the importance of stress concentration, and
the mechanism of crack growth with repeated loading.
Versailles rail accident, 1842
Mechanical Design
3
On 8 May 1842 one of the trains carrying revellers on their
return journey from Versailles to Paris, having witnessed
the celebrations of the birthday of Louis Philippe, derailed
and caught fire the leading locomotive broke an axle.
It was estimated that 53 people died and around 40 were
seriously injured.
The derailment had been the result of a
broken locomotive axle.
Rankines investigation of broken axles in Britain
highlighted the importance of stress concentration, and
the mechanism of crack growth with repeated loading.
Versailles rail accident, 1842
Mechanical Design
Fatigue failure mode has been an active field of research
since it was initiated by Wilhelm August Albert in 1829.
Albert devised a waterwheel powered apparatus to test
the durability of iron chain under repeated loads.
In 1847, the Royal Commission on the Application of Iron
to Railway Structures (RCAIRS) was appointed to
! inquire into the conditions to be observed by engineers
in the application of iron to structures exposed to violent
concussions and vibration, and to endeavour to
ascertain such principles and form such rules as may
enable the engineer and mechanic in their respective
spheres to apply the metal with confidence
Mechanical Design
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Based on a series of empirical observations of the fatigue
strength of a simply supported beam with a given
maximum deflection, RCAIRS reported what appears to
be the first design code for dynamically loaded
components, i.e. that
! to resist the effects of repeated flexure, iron should
scarcely be allowed to suffer a deflection equal to 1/3 of
its ultimate deflection and since the deflection produced
by a given load is increased by the effects of percussion it
is advisable that the greatest load in railway bridges
should in no case exceed 1/6 of the weight which
would break the beam when laid on at rest at the
centre.
Mechanical Design
Royal Commission on the Application of Iron to Railway Structures (RCAIRS)
Anton Whler made the first systematic investigation of
the fatigue mode of failure.
Whler managed the railway machine shop of the
NiederschlesischMrkische railway, and in 1852 was
appointed to lead a commission to study the cause of
rolling stock failures.
Whlers contributions:
service-load acquisition,
the specification of iron and steel, and
the fatigue strength of materials.
Mechanical Design
5
Anton Whler overcame the practical difficulties
associated with observing the fatigue failure mode
by devising an experimental apparatus that enabled the
railway axle operating conditions to be simulated in a
controlled environment.
This fatigue testing apparatus applied a fully reversed
bending load, i.e. R = 1, applied to specimens via a
spring preload.
By testing the fatigue life of materials in a series of loading
conditions, Whler systematically generated the
first S-N curves
(i.e. S = stress, N = number of cycles),
also known as Whler curves.
Mechanical Design
Rotating cantilever beam fatigue testing apparatus
devised by Whler to investigate the fatigue failure of
railway axles. Specimen bending moment is constant
along the active specimen length.

specimen
rotation
static loads
Mechanical Design
6

Typical rotating bending fatigue testing apparatus.
Also known as R.R. Moore testing, the rotating bending
applies pure bending to a rotating axisymmetric specimen.
Rotatingbending allows a high test frequency, limited
only by the harmonics of the testing scenario.
specimen

Functional schematic of the R.R. Moore rotating bending
fatigue testing apparatus.
W = mg
specimen
rotation
static loads
Mechanical Design
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In more recent times, metal fatigue came to the forefront
of aircraft design following failures in service failures of the
de Havilland Comet

Mechanical Design

In 1954, three de Havilland Comet passenger jets broke up
in mid-air and crashed. Investigators from the Royal Aircraft
Establishment at Farnborough in England found that the
sharp corners around the planes window openings (the
forward ADF antenna window in the roof) acted as initiation
sites for cracks.
The skin of the aircraft was also too thin, and residual
manufacturing stress cracks were present at the
corners. All aircraft windows were immediately redesigned
with rounded corners.
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Uncertainty is introduced when a mismatch exists
between the
specimen experimental test mode
and the
loading applied to the subsequent component design.
The available fatigue literature lacks coherence regarding
the interchangeability of fatigue data generated by
different test modes.
Example on the following slide!
Mechanical Design
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
1.E+03 1.E+04 1.E+05 1.E+06 1.E+07 1.E+08 1.E+09
Cycles to failure (N)
S
t
r
e
s
s

a
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

(
M
P
a
)
Uniaxial fatigue test mode
Rotating bending fatigue test mode

S-N curves reported for rotating bending and uniaxial loading of
6061-T6 aluminium. The discrepancy between reported values
decreases as the number of cycles to failure increases.
Legend: Continuous specimen (solid line), welded specimen (dashed line)
Rotation bending fatigue test mode
Uniaxial fatigue test mode
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MCEN90013 Mechanical Design
End of Lecture
Fatigue a brief history