High-Cycle Fatigue Testing

Christoph Leser
 August Whler Fatigue Experiments
Simplified representation of his rotating beam experiments
Looking at an element Plotting the bending stress
on the rotating beam Mc
( = )
I
()
A as the element traverses
W B
C A-B-C-D-A
(+)
M C
+
A Compression
O B Zero
4-point bending 0 B D
C Tensile
D Zero (not shown) -
A A

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High Cycle Fatigue
High Cycle Fatigue tests didnt end with Whlers 18
years of testing that was just the start.
Each slightly different steel or cast iron had its own
characteristic SN diagram 103 106

R.R. Moore Into the

machine 1940s & 1950s

Tests conducted and data collected in labs around the world ever since.
For all sorts of materials, not just steel and cast iron

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ASTM E 466
Constant load amplitude
Typically load control
Typically R = -1 0 i.e. fully reversed
Long life, so little plastic strain

G

High frequency so the test doesnt take forever: typically 20-30 Hz because theres
so little damage per cycle. (too much damage per cycle, combined with high
frequency, causes the specimen to heat up. ASTM doesnt want more than 2C
change, or the test results will be affected.)
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 Lab Notes HCF Test

Objective
Determine the fatigue life for samples of candidate steels. Use various stress levels to specify the finite life
portion of the SN Diagram.

Apparatus and Materials

1. MTS servohydraulic test system with TestSuite software
2. Mild steel specimens (standard round geometry; ref. ASTM E466)
3. Micrometer or dial caliper

Principles and Background

The high cycle fatigue test (along with the tension test) is one of the most useful of the material property tests.
It establishes the relationship between a particular stress level and the fatigue life of a material. Knowledge of
this relationship is essential to design engineers.

As discussed in the tension testing unit, an electromechanical test system uses an electric motor and a gear
train to drive one, two or four power screws and move a crosshead up or down. This method of load application
presents several problems when trying to run high cycle fatigue. First, cycling a power screw between tension
and compression at high rates of speed will extrude and dissipate the lubricant between screw and bearing.
The resulting heat and wear will be very detrimental to the overall system. Also, cycling between tension and
compression will involve some amount of backlash as the screw changes from pushing on the specimen to
pulling on the specimen. The small tolerance gap between pushing and pulling can produce some unwanted
and undesirable side effects during each load reversal. For these and other reasons, servohydraulic test
systems are the appropriate test technology for cyclic testing. (Note: in simulation mode, however, the e/m
Page 20 system performs very well!)
 Lab Notes HCF Test

Prelab

1. The material of interest is a steel with an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 48 ksi. The specimen diameters
are 0.25 in. Select four stress levels (specified in ksi) that will adequately characterize the finite fatigue life
region of the steel. Determine the load end levels the test system should use in conducting each test.

Stress Level (ksi) Maximum load Minimum load

(ksi) (lbs) (lbs)

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