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In the present work, the fatigue resistance values of Scalmalloy specimens obtained by selective laser melting (SLM) additive manufacturing (AM) are experimentally studied. The fatigue levels of specimens with and without notches after applying different surface treatments, such as sand blasting, shot peening, isotropic finishing, and polishing alone or in combination, are analyzed. To understand the fatigue behavior of this material, the surface finishes and internal residual stresses of the specimens are analyzed. Moreover, the fracture surface of each sample is observed by electron microscopy to determine the failure mechanism. There is a clear separation between two different types of failure: (1) rupture by a crack generated on the surface associated with high applied stress values and (2) failure by a crack generated on an internal defect associated with low applied stress values.

For a mechanical part to be certified, it should be assessed whether its mechanical, optical or thermal properties satisfy service requirements. Fatigue is one of the critical properties of functional materials, particularly in the aviation industry, where new materials, such as alloys, fibre-reinforced composites and additively manufactured alloys, dominate increasingly. This trend puts a heavy burden on fatigue characterisation, which is expensive and time-consuming. However, recent developments in artificial intelligence offer novel methods to decrease the test load cost-effectively. Hence, this literature survey first summarises predominant fatigue models both theoretical and numerical, and then covers and classifies recent studies (2000–2023) using recent machine learning techniques. Copyright © 2023 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

ASME 2022 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, IMECE 2022 -- 30 October 2022 through 3 November 2022 -- 186577, The aviation industry demands innovation in new materials and processes which can demonstrate high performance with minimum weight. Strength-to-weight ratio (STR) is the key metric that drives the value justification in this demand stream. However, aviation's test and certification procedures are time-consuming, expensive, and heavily regulated. This study proposes a Digital Twin (DT) framework to address the time and high costs of mechanical testing procedures in the aviation industry. The proposed DT utilizes new Machine Learning (ML) techniques such as Transfer Learning (TL). Hence, a proof-of-concept study using TL in the Aluminum material group has been demonstrated. The promising results revealed that it was possible to reduce the test load of new material to 40% without any significant error. Copyright © 2022 by ASME., The authors are thankful for the valuable advice of Assoc.Prof. Ersin Bahceci throughout this study.

For a mechanical part to be certified, it should be assessed whether its mechanical, optical or thermal properties satisfy service requirements. Fatigue is one of the critical properties of functional materials, particularly in the aviation industry, where new materials, such as alloys, fibre-reinforced composites and additively manufactured alloys, dominate increasingly. This trend puts a heavy burden on fatigue characterisation, which is expensive and time-consuming. However, recent developments in artificial intelligence offer novel methods to decrease the test load cost-effectively. Hence, this literature survey first summarises predominant fatigue models both theoretical and numerical, and then covers and classifies recent studies (2000–2023) using recent machine learning techniques. Copyright © 2023 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

ASME 2022 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, IMECE 2022 -- 30 October 2022 through 3 November 2022 -- 186577, The aviation industry demands innovation in new materials and processes which can demonstrate high performance with minimum weight. Strength-to-weight ratio (STR) is the key metric that drives the value justification in this demand stream. However, aviation's test and certification procedures are time-consuming, expensive, and heavily regulated. This study proposes a Digital Twin (DT) framework to address the time and high costs of mechanical testing procedures in the aviation industry. The proposed DT utilizes new Machine Learning (ML) techniques such as Transfer Learning (TL). Hence, a proof-of-concept study using TL in the Aluminum material group has been demonstrated. The promising results revealed that it was possible to reduce the test load of new material to 40% without any significant error. Copyright © 2022 by ASME., The authors are thankful for the valuable advice of Assoc.Prof. Ersin Bahceci throughout this study.

This study reports the variability of the fatigue strength of specimens manufactured by the laser powder bed fusion process with respect to their location on the build plate. Specimens from the right-hand and left-hand halves of the build plate were tested under high cycle fatigue. Comparison of the fatigue data suggests that the specimens manufactured on the right-hand half of the build plate have a higher fatigue strength than those manufactured on the left-hand half. One reason for the observed discrepancy in fatigue strength was the higher accumulation of spattered powder particles on the left-hand side as compared to the right-hand side of the build plate. These spattered particles are oxidised, and form defects such as inclusions within the specimen. © 2021 The Author(s)

This study reports the variability of the fatigue strength of specimens manufactured by the laser powder bed fusion process with respect to their location on the build plate. Specimens from the right-hand and left-hand halves of the build plate were tested under high cycle fatigue. Comparison of the fatigue data suggests that the specimens manufactured on the right-hand half of the build plate have a higher fatigue strength than those manufactured on the left-hand half. One reason for the observed discrepancy in fatigue strength was the higher accumulation of spattered powder particles on the left-hand side as compared to the right-hand side of the build plate. These spattered particles are oxidised, and form defects such as inclusions within the specimen. © 2021 The Author(s)

Structural elements of ships are subjected to a high number of cyclic loads, which are critical to fatigue life. Especially for ultra-large container ships the cutting of thick steel plates with high finishing quality and good fatigue life is important, e.g. located at openings in walls and decks of ships. This study presents a series of fatigue tests with 50 mm thick S355 specimens that are thermally gas cut on different shipyards. The obtained stress-life (S-N) curve contains significant horizontal scatter which often occurs for specimens that spend a high number of cycles on crack initiation. However, it is found that both the local stress concentrations and the origin of failure affect the number of load cycles significantly. Accounting for local stress concentrations provides an explanation for the initially encountered scatter in the S-N curves and indicates possible limitations of the nominal stress approach for thermal cut edges., QC 20221125

This study aims to understand crack opening-closing behavior on pre-fatigued welded joints repaired by High Frequency Mechanical Impact (HFMI). Detailed rat-hole specimen models inserting different depths of rectangle slit in the weld toes to simulate initial cracks were used in the HFMI treatment simulation. Induced compressive residual stress, change of slit geometry, and opening-closing behavior of the slit after HFMI treatment simulation were investigated numerically. The amount of induced compressive residual stress around the slit tip is reduced when slit depth becomes larger, and slit size of about 0.4 mm remains when the slit depth is 2.0 mm. The opening-closing behavior of HFMI treated slit was examined based on change of strains along the slit face. The slit is opened from the bottom side prior to its treated surface. Additionally, the crack opening-closing behavior was investigated experimentally using pre-fatigued out-of-plane gusset welded joints repaired by impact crack closure retrofit treatment. Phased array ultrasonic testing system was used to examine the change of echo height from cracks. It could be concluded that similar behavior as the numerical investigation is observed. From both investigations, experimentally and numerically, the behavior on pre-fatigue welded joints repaired by HFMI could be studied successfully., QC 20221109

The use of fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) elements without traditional reinforcement is increasing in applications for which the structure is exposed to cyclic loadings, such as pavements, bridge deck overlays and offshore structures. Cyclic loads produce tensile stresses that can lead to crack initiation and propagation, and thus compromising the mechanical performance and durability that may bring about noncompliance with service or limit state requirements. The loss of performance owe to material fatigue-induced strength degradation might be significantly accelerated in cracked cross-sections. This contribution presents the results and outcomes derived from an experimental program on the flexural fatigue behaviour of pre-cracked fibre reinforced concrete carried out on notched 600x150x150 mm beams. The evolution of the crack opening displacement and other design-sensitive parameters were monitored and analysed. The understanding of the damage propagation is the basis for the proposal of a design-oriented constitutive model, which is meant to be used for predicting the fatigue life in cracking-allowed concrete structures designed to be subjected to fatigue-inducing loads. The constitutive model was calibrated for a content (9 kg/m3) of a specific type of macrosynthetic fibre and considering different fatigue load levels., Postprint (author's final draft)

In this study, to evaluate the influence of grid blast following to the peening process on the fatigue strength improvement, residual stress measurement and fatigue tests have been conducted. Examined peening processes were UIT, PPP and HP with ICR apparatus. For the residual stress measurement, plate and on-bead specimens made of JIS-SM400, SBHS400, SBHS500 and SBHS700 were used, and X-ray diffraction method was applied to the measurement. The results concluded that the differences in the compressive residual stress distribution in the vicinity of peened area with and without blast are not so significant. For the fatigue tests, out-of-plane gusset welded joint specimens made of JIS-SM490 and SBHS500 were used. Fatigue tests were conducted under stress ratio R=0.0 and 0.5. Fatigue tests showed that fatigue strength of peened specimens with blast are almost the same as that of peened specimens without blast, and those results were observed independently of steel grade and of peening methods., Part of proceedings: ISBN 9780429279119, QC 20230117

A round-robin study has been carried out within a national project in Sweden with the addition of an international participant, where several industrial partners and universities are participating. The project aims to identify variation and sources of variation in welding production, map scatter in fatigue life estimation, and define and develop concepts to reduce these, in all steps of product development. The participating organisations were asked to carry out fatigue life assessment of welded box structures, which is a component in load-carrying structures. The estimations of fatigue life have also been compared with fatigue test results. Detailed drawings, loads and material data were also given to the participants. The participants were supposed to use assessment methods based on global and local stresses using the design codes or recommendations they currently use in-house. Differences were identified between both methods and participants using the same codes/recommendations. Applicability and conditions from the cases in the codes were also identified to be differently evaluated between the participants. It could be concluded that for the applied cases the nominal stress method often overestimated the fatigue life and had a high scatter in the estimations by different participants. The effective notch method is conservative in comparison to the life of tested components with little scatter between the results derived by the participants., QC 20220118

In this work, the phase-field approach to fracture is extended to model fatigue failure in high- and low-cycle regime. The fracture energy degradation due to the repeated externally applied loads is introduced as a function of a local energy accumulation variable, which takes the structural loading history into account. To this end, a novel definition of the energy accumulation variable is proposed, allowing the fracture analysis at monotonic loading without the interference of the fatigue extension, thus making the framework generalised. Moreover, this definition includes the mean load influence of implicitly. The elastoplastic material model with the combined nonlinear isotropic and nonlinear kinematic hardening is introduced to account for cyclic plasticity. The ability of the proposed phenomenological approach to naturally recover main features of fatigue, including Paris law and Wöhler curve under different load ratios is presented through numerical examples and compared with experimental data from the author’s previous work. Physical interpretation of additional fatigue material parameter is explored through the parametric study. © 2021, The Author(s).

The results of tests under monotonically increasing load and cyclic compression load are often analysed by means of probabilistic methods. Although there is a considerable scattering in the results, especially in the number of cycles to failure, the cause of these cannot be completely explained. The imperfections of the specimens tested are among the causes of this scattering mentioned in the literature. Based on a round robin test the influence of HPC and UHPC production and specimen preparation techniques on the mean values of the compressive strengths, number of cycles to failure and data scattering have been evaluated. The main findings of the study are that the production techniques have an influence on the compressive strength, however, do not affect the mean number of cycles to failure. Moreover, the accurate preparation of the specimens has a positive influence on the compressive strength and the scattering of the results of both compression and cyclic load tests. The mean number of cycles to failure of HPC specimens is not influenced by the preparation techniques, whereas the polishing technique may have a positive influence on the mean number of cycles to failure of UHPC specimens. © 2021, The Author(s).

Accurate knowledge of the plastic zone of fatigue cracks is a very direct and effective way to quantify the damage of components subjected to cyclic loads. In this work, we propose an ultra-fine experimental characterisation of the plastic zone based on Vickers micro-indentations. The methodology is applied to different compact tension (CT) specimens made of aluminium alloy 2024-T351 subjected to increasing stress intensity factors. The experimental work and sensitivity analysis showed that polishing the surface to #3 mu m surface finish and applying a 25 g-force load for 15 s produced the best results in terms of resolution and quality of the data. The methodology allowed the size and shape of both the cyclic and the monotonic plastic zones to be visualised through 2D contour maps. Comparison with Westergaard's analytical model indicates that the methodology, in general, overestimates the plastic zone. Comparison with S355 low carbon steel suggests that the methodology works best for alloys exhibiting a high strain hardening ratio.

Accurate knowledge of the plastic zone of fatigue cracks is a very direct and effective way to quantify the damage of components subjected to cyclic loads. In this work, we propose an ultra-fine experimental characterisation of the plastic zone based on Vickers micro-indentations. The methodology is applied to different compact tension (CT) specimens made of aluminium alloy 2024-T351 subjected to increasing stress intensity factors. The experimental work and sensitivity analysis showed that polishing the surface to #3 mu m surface finish and applying a 25 g-force load for 15 s produced the best results in terms of resolution and quality of the data. The methodology allowed the size and shape of both the cyclic and the monotonic plastic zones to be visualised through 2D contour maps. Comparison with Westergaard's analytical model indicates that the methodology, in general, overestimates the plastic zone. Comparison with S355 low carbon steel suggests that the methodology works best for alloys exhibiting a high strain hardening ratio.

Accurate knowledge of the plastic zone of fatigue cracks is a very direct and effective way to quantify the damage of components subjected to cyclic loads. In this work, we propose an ultra-fine experimental characterisation of the plastic zone based on Vickers micro-indentations. The methodology is applied to different compact tension (CT) specimens made of aluminium alloy 2024-T351 subjected to increasing stress intensity factors. The experimental work and sensitivity analysis showed that polishing the surface to #3 mu m surface finish and applying a 25 g-force load for 15 s produced the best results in terms of resolution and quality of the data. The methodology allowed the size and shape of both the cyclic and the monotonic plastic zones to be visualised through 2D contour maps. Comparison with Westergaard's analytical model indicates that the methodology, in general, overestimates the plastic zone. Comparison with S355 low carbon steel suggests that the methodology works best for alloys exhibiting a high strain hardening ratio.

Demanding environmental legislation and improve performance specifications requires increasing fatigue strength for the engine components that are made of lamellar graphite iron (LGI). Components design, metallurgy and casting conditions define the microstructure formation and mechanical properties. The graphite inclusions embedded in the metallic matrix acting as defects and have a detrimental effect on the fatigue strength of LGI. The cooling conditions determine the coarseness of the microstructure and also have, a great impact on the fatigue resistance. The experimental material was an LGI alloy produced with three different solidification times. A fully reversed fatigue test was performed, and various microstructure features were quantitatively estimated by utilizing the Gumbel's statistics of extremes. The stereological parameter of Hydraulic Diameter of the Inter-dendritic Phase and the graphite Feret size found to be the most suitable microstructure parameters to be correlated with the fatigue limit. The results also indicate the sizeable effect of the solidification time on the fatigue limit. Several other microstructure features that have been reported to influence the tensile strength were also found to be related to the fatigue limit. The obtained endurance ratio ranges from 0.25 to 0.30, a value that is in line with previous investigations.

The remaining useful life (RUL) of electronic modules under the influence of rugged random-vibration and operational conditions is investigated in this paper. The effects of storage conditions and soft failures, caused by the vibrations to solder joints of a printed circuit board (PCB) are analyzed. The RUL is estimated with the help of vibration testing and finite element analysis techniques. Keeping in view the standard and working environmental conditions, the PCB of a power distribution module is subjected to random and sine vibrations. Besides the significance of fatigue damage and RUL estimation of solder joints, caused by storage or operation for a period of five years has not been addressed in existing literature so far. The current study performs the modal analysis to find the natural frequencies, mode shapes, and participation factor ratios of a PCB and its components. These natural frequencies are subsequently verified via comparison with experimental sine sweep results. A random vibration test over the frequency range from 10 Hz to 2000 Hz is also applied for recording the time-to-failure ratio of the PCB. Moreover, the spectrum analysis is performed using the commercial ANSYS software, to assess the acceleration response and the stress power spectral density (PSD) of the critical solder joints. The stress PSD is then used to estimate the random vibration fatigue damage of the solder joint. The calculated fatigue life, based on the modified Miner's rule and the Basquin power-law conform to the actual random vibration testing results., QC 20200630

Robustness of HFMI treatment in different weld qualities according to ISO 5817 was studied, and fatigue testing of the treated samples was carried out in order to investigate the effect of the weld quality prior treatment. The results show that HFMI-treated welds with weld quality level D shows fatigue life improvements that fall within the IIW recommendations for HFMI. No significant influence from the HFMI operator or HFMI equipment on the fatigue life was found. However, the scatter in fatigue testing results varied with HFMI operator and indicated that different HFMI operators could produce consistent treatment results. A considerable effect on fatigue life from HFMI tool radius was found, where the 2-mm tool radius showed considerably greater fatigue life compared with the 1.5-mm tool radius. According to IIW (Marquis and Barsoum 2016), for steel grade SY = 700 MPa, the fatigue strength recommendation is FAT 160 (m = 5) for transverse stiffener–welded joints with as-welded quality B according to ISO 5817 (ISO/TC 44/SC 10 2011), prior to treatment. It can be observed in the current study that fatigue-tested HFMI-treated welded joints, welded with weld quality D, are in good agreement with the IIW recommendations., QC 20201230

Rolling contact experiments with slip were performed on artificial asperities and indents with pile-up. Micro-pits arose at the leading edge of the asperities and classic rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks initiated behind the trailing edge of the indents. The elastic-plastic run-in process and the thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) load cycles were studied numerically. The run-in process caused high tensile residual stresses at the leading edge of the asperities while the TEHL load cycle caused high tensile stresses at the trailing edge of both the asperities and the indents. The conclusion was thus drawn that the classic RCF cracks behind the indents were caused by the TEHL load cycle while the micro-pits at these artificial asperities were caused by the tensile residual stresses from plastic deformation., QC 20201230

In the current study a method to determine the location of fracture initiation for non-load carrying fillet welds based on continuous geometry measurements is proposed. Measurements and weld quality evaluation were carried out on welded specimens using the Winteria® software qWeld. One hundred nineteen specimens were produced, scanned, and fatigue tested until failure. The fracture surfaces have been investigated in order to find the location(s) for most probable point(s) of initiation. These data were then used to fit the proposed model parameters used to predict the point of initiation. Local weld geometry measurements were extracted from the predicted fracture initiation location(s) to analyse the correlation between local weld geometry and fatigue life. It was observed that fatigue life and leg length were positively correlated and that strong correlations exist between the individual geometrical parameters with regard to location of the fatigue crack initiation., QC 20201229

In this study, Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) approach is used to evaluate the fatigue strength of a box-shaped welded structure. A parametric study is also undertaken to study the effect of various weld parameters on the fatigue strength, such as lack of weld metal penetration, load position, and plate thicknesses. FRANC3D software was adopted to obtain the stress intensity factor values for two types of full-length and intermediate crack sizes, located at the critical region of the weld of the box-shaped structure. It was concluded that the LEFM approach could capture the crack propagation from the weld root reasonably well under the given conditions and estimate residual fatigue life of the welded structures conservatively. Compared to fatigue life estimations by nominal stress method (1,714,564 cycles) or effective notch stress method (63,385 cycles), the LEFM approach can estimate the residual life more accurately. Especially for intermediate (4 mm) lack of penetration (LOP) of weld metal case (589,198 cycles) in comparison to the experiments (1,216,595 cycles). The parametric study showed that the fatigue life increases with increase in the thickness of flanges, lesser LOP in the weld root, and when load is applied more toward the center of the plate., QC 20201217

A novel application of magnetostrictive actuators in underplatform dampers of bladed disks is proposed for adaptive control of the normal load at the friction interface to achieve the desired friction damping in the structure. Friction damping in a bladed disk depends on operating parameters, such as rotational speed, engine excitation order, nodal diameter normal contact load, and contact interface parameters, such as contact stiffness and friction coefficient. The operating parameters have a fixed value, whereas the contact interface parameters vary in an unpredictable way at an operating point. However, the ability to vary some of these parameters such as the normal contact load in a controlled manner is desirable to attain an optimum damping in the bladed disk at different operating conditions. Under the influence of an external magnetic field, magnetostrictive materials develop an internal strain that can be exploited to vary the normal contact load at the friction interface, which makes them a potentially good candidate for this application. A commercially available magnetostrictive alloy, Terfenol-D is considered in this analysis that is capable of providing magnetostrain up to 2 × 10-3 under prestress and a blocked force over 1500 N. A linearized model of the magnetostrictive material, which is accurate enough for a direct current application, is employed to compute the output force of the actuator. A nonlinear finite element contact analysis is performed to compute the normal contact load between the blade platform and the underplatform damper as a result of magnetostrictive actuation. The nonlinear contact analysis is performed for different actuator mounting configurations and the obtained results are discussed. The proposed solution is potentially applicable to adaptively control vibratory stresses in bladed disks and consequently to reduce failure due to high-cycle fatigue. Finally, the practical challenges in employing magnetostrictive actuators in und, QC 20200714

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

In this study, the fatigue strength of 316 L stainless steel manufactured by selective laser melting (SLM) is evaluated. The effect of powder layer thickness and postmachining is investigated. Specimens were produced with 30 and 50 µm layer thickness and tested under high cycle fatigue in as-printed and postmachined conditions. Examination of the specimens reveals that in the as-printed condition, fatigue strength suffers from high roughness and surface tensile residual stresses as well as defects such as pores and lack of fusion voids. After machining, the fatigue strength was improved due to lower surface roughness, presence of compressive residual stresses, and removal of surface porosity. The results show that increasing the layer thickness (within the range tested) has a minor negative impact on fatigue strength; however, it has a major positive impact on the productivity of the SLM process. In addition, it is clear that the impact of postmachining on fatigue is far greater than that of the layer thickness. © 2020, The Author(s)., Funding details: 2015-03457; Funding text 1: Open access funding provided by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. This work was supported by Sweden’s Innovation Agency [Grant Number: 2015-03457]. Ms. Anna Larsson and Mr. Heike Henrich from Höganäs AB are acknowledged for performing porosity and metallography analyses.

In this study, the fatigue strength of 316 L stainless steel manufactured by selective laser melting (SLM) is evaluated. The effect of powder layer thickness and postmachining is investigated. Specimens were produced with 30 and 50 µm layer thickness and tested under high cycle fatigue in as-printed and postmachined conditions. Examination of the specimens reveals that in the as-printed condition, fatigue strength suffers from high roughness and surface tensile residual stresses as well as defects such as pores and lack of fusion voids. After machining, the fatigue strength was improved due to lower surface roughness, presence of compressive residual stresses, and removal of surface porosity. The results show that increasing the layer thickness (within the range tested) has a minor negative impact on fatigue strength; however, it has a major positive impact on the productivity of the SLM process. In addition, it is clear that the impact of postmachining on fatigue is far greater than that of the layer thickness. © 2020, The Author(s)., Funding details: 2015-03457; Funding text 1: Open access funding provided by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. This work was supported by Sweden’s Innovation Agency [Grant Number: 2015-03457]. Ms. Anna Larsson and Mr. Heike Henrich from Höganäs AB are acknowledged for performing porosity and metallography analyses.

Fatigue is among the most critical forms of deterioration damage that occurs to steel bridges. It causes a decline of the safety level of bridges over time. Much research has been accomplished on a reliability level, which focuses on evaluating the service life of the selected detail or the whole structure. However, the decisions aiming to keep the existing bridges in service should be further considered, i.e. whether interventions are needed, what kind of interventions could be applied, which intervention is the optimal choice to be both sustainable and economical within a budget restraint considered. Therefore a risk-based decision making framework is necessary for bridges service life extension. In this paper, a risk-based decision support framework is formulated aiming for rational decisions, which is presented as a decision tree. It presents possible intervention actions, evaluates the corresponding probability of failure and integrates them with possible consequences. A case study of the Rautasjokk Bridge in Sweden is incorporated to demonstrate the framework. A separation of the load bearing structure in subsystems is suggested for risk analysis and decision optimization. The expected result and how to prioritize the calculated utilities are discussed. And the results are compared with the reliability analysis to check if they are consistent., QC 20210930

Specimen miniaturization is gaining a lot of interest in the fracture mechanics community thanks to recent methods accounting for specimen size correction. In particular, the miniature compact tension (mini-CT) specimen is gaining large international interest for irradiated surveillance materials used to monitor irradiation damage in reactor pressure vessels. Because of the limited available amount of some of these materials, eight mini-CT specimens can easily be machined from one broken Charpy specimen, avoiding the need of consuming surveillance materials. Specimen reorientation also becomes possible to investigate anisotropic effects. At this stage, ASTM E1921, Standard Test Method for Determination of Reference Temperature, T0, for Ferritic Steels in the Transition Range(Superseded), the standard for brittle fracture, and ASTM E1820, Standard Test Method for Measurement of Fracture Toughness (Superseded), the standard for ductile fracture, are used for this geometry, although it does not fully satisfy the requirements of the standards. In particular, the specifications on the specimen dimensions relative to the specimenwidth are tight, given that the tolerances are a fraction of the specimen width. Given that the actual dimensions of the specimen are taken into account in the calculations, the analysis described in this article shows that the tight dimensional accuracy is not necessary. Moreover, given the limited thickness of the specimen, the curvature of the fatigue precrack tends to deviate from a quasi-straight front. As a result, a large number of mini-CT specimens do not fulfill the standard requirements with respect to crack front curvature. Previous tests demonstrated that actual cracks excessive curvature lead to similar results when compared with artificial fatigue quasistraight cracks. The objective of this article is to experimentally demonstrate that some of the standard requirements can be relaxed without jeopardizing the quality of test data, in

A recommendation for the application and fatigue assessment of the HFMI post-treatment was published by the IIW in 2016. Recently, the therein recommended HFMI design curves in case of constant amplitude loading (CAL) were validated involving test data with different base material yield strengths, increased plate thicknesses, and elevated load ratios. Continuative to this previous work, this paper focuses on the fatigue assessment of HFMI-treated steel joints under variable amplitude loading (VAL). Four test data sets including randomly distributed VAL and a sufficient amount of tested specimens to ensure a statistically verified assessment are investigated. It is shown that an application of the recommended equivalent stress range approach and a further comparison of the test results to the design curves under CAL lead to a conservative fatigue assessment if the recommended value of the specified damage sum of D = 0.5 is used. Furthermore, an increased value of D = 1.0 still maintains a conservative design as presented in the study. Based on this work involving the analysed data sets, it can be concluded that the recommended procedure is well applicable and a conservative fatigue design is facilitated., QC 20201228

The development within the offshore wind sector towards more powerful turbines combined with increasing water depth for new wind parks is challenging both the designer as well as the manufacturer of bottom fixed support structures. Besides XL-monopiles, the market developed an innovative and economic jacket support structure which is based on automatically manufactured tubular joints combined with standardized pipes. Besides the improvements for a serial manufacturing process the automatically welded tubular joints show a great potential in terms of fatigue resistance e.g. due to a smooth weld geometry without sharp notches. However, these benefits are not considered yet within the fatigue design process of automatically manufactured jacket substructures according to current standards due to the lack of suitable S-N curves. Therefore, 32 axial fatigue tests on single and double-sided automatically welded tubular X-joints have been performed to determine a new hot spot stress related S-N curve. Based on these constant amplitude fatigue tests a new S-N curve equal to a FAT 126 curve was computed which implicitly includes the benefits of the automatically welding procedure. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

As the older wind farms are slowly reaching their design lifetime, topics like fatigue and lifetime assessment gain importance. To decide on a possible lifetime extension of the turbine and its foundation, an accurate fatigue assessment for every wind turbine in the farm is needed. As the installation of specific sensors needed for a fatigue assessment is too time consuming and costly, the "Fleet Leader Concept" is applied and validated in this paper. Here, a few turbines are instrumented and a fatigue assessment based on rainflow counting and Miner's rule can be performed. For a farm-wide fatigue assessment, the obtained damage is extrapolated towards the other turbines. Sample based bootstrapping is performed to introduce an uncertainty on the results. A successful extrapolation was obtained for in-field measurements at an older offshore wind farm. In general, relative errors of less than 5% on damage were found. © 2020 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

Additive manufacturing of Alloy 718 has become a popular subject of research in recent years. Understanding the process-microstructure-property relationship of additively manufactured Alloy 718 is crucial for maturing the technology to manufacture critical components. Fatigue behaviour is a key mechanical property that is required in applications such as gas turbines. Therefore, in the present work, low cycle fatigue behaviour of Alloy 718 manufactured by laser beam powder bed fusion process has been investigated. The material was tested in as-built condition as well as after two different thermal post-treatments. Three orientations with respect to the building direction were tested to evaluate the anisotropy. Testing was performed at room temperature under controlled amplitudes of strain. It was found that defects, inclusions, strengthening precipitates, and Young’s modulus influence the fatigue behaviour under strain-controlled conditions. The strengthening precipitates affected the deformation mechanism as well as the cycle-dependent hardening/softening behaviour. The defects and the inclusions had a detrimental effect on fatigue life. The presence of Laves phase in LB-PBF Alloy 718 did not have a detrimental effect on fatigue life. Young’s modulus was anisotropic and it contributed to the anisotropy in strain-life relationship. Pseudo-elastic stress vs. fatigue life approach could be used to handle the modulus-induced anisotropy in the strain-life relationship. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland., Funders: GKN. This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufacturing of Superalloys

In this study, Alloy 718 specimens manufactured by Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion process are subjected to two different post-treatments to have different microstructural features. Low cycle fatigue testing has been performed both parallel and transverse to the build direction. EB-PBF Alloy 718 exhibits anisotropic fatigue behaviour; the fatigue life is better along the parallel direction compared to the transverse direction. The anisotropy in fatigue life is related to the anisotropy in the Young’s modulus. The pseudo-elastic stress vs. fatigue life approach is presented as a potential solution to handle anisotropy in fatigue life assessment of additively manufactured engineering components. © 2020 The Authors

In this paper, T-joint samples in a 1300 MPa yield strength steel were produced using conventional or low transformation temperature (LTT) type consumables. The welded samples were either subjected to high-frequency mechanical impact (HFMI) treatment or to shot-peening. Fatigue testing was performed under fully reversed, constant amplitude bending load. Shot-peening gave a significant increase in fatigue strength for more than around 50,000 cycles. Shot-peened LTT welds had the highest fatigue strength, with conventional welds being shot-peened having slightly lower fatigue strength. HFMI treatment of conventional and LTT welds improved the fatigue strength also, but to a lesser extent, keeping the slope in the SN diagram close to three, while shot-peened samples had a slope of 5–7. Significant differences in compressive residual stress were seen between the different welds, with the most compressive stress found in the shot-peened samples. This was probably one of the main reasons for the improved fatigue life of shot-peened samples. © 2020, The Author(s).

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

Titanium-based alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), a phenomenon that deteriorates fatigue properties. Ti-6Al-4V is the most widely used titanium alloy and the effect of hydrogen embrittlement on fatigue crack growth (FCG) was investigated by carrying out crack propagation tests in air and high-pressure H2 environment. The FCG test in hydrogen environment resulted in a drastic increase in crack growth rate at a certain DK, with crack propagation rates up to 13 times higher than those observed in air. Possible reasons for such behavior were discussed in this paper. The relationship between FCG results in high-pressure H2 environment and microstructure was investigated by comparison with already published results of cast and forged Ti-6Al-4V. Coarser microstructure was found to be more sensitive to HE. Moreover, the electron beam melting (EBM) materials experienced a crack growth acceleration in-between that of cast and wrought Ti-6Al-4V. © 2020 by the authors., Funders: Space for innovation and growth (RIT)

The effect of 20-40-keV Ar+ ion irradiation on the fatigue resistance of hot-pressed V95 alloy (Al-Zn-Mg-Cu system) profiles 6 mm thick after quenching and artificial aging (140°, 16 h) has been investigated. The use of the irradiation conditions (E = 40 keV, j = 500 μA/cm2), under which the profiles were briefly heated to a temperature of 200°C, is found to reduce the strength properties of the alloy significantly, which does not meet the specified requirements. Irradiation conditions, which enable one to avoid significant heating of a target at E = 20 keV and j = 400 μA/cm2, do not affect the fatigue resistance significantly at all fluences of F = 1•1015, 1•1016, 1•1017 cm-2. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

The current study focuses on the development of a predictive model for assessing the fatigue life of welded joints based on measured weld geometry and applied load. Two different materials (S355 and S960) and two different material thicknesses (2 mm and 8 mm) were considered. Experiments on cruciform joints were conducted to evaluate the fatigue performance for different types of weld geometries. A computational model based on FEM and linear elastic fracture mechanics was developed and adapted to fit the experimental results using optimization and surrogate models. It is observed that the general fatigue behavior differs for the different materials for the same variation in geometry. The fatigue performance depends on a combination of geometrical parameters. The use of FAT curves according to the weld quality systems, e.g., ISO 5817, is insufficient to describe fatigue properties for welds in thin high strength steel, and different geometries within different weld quality levels can give the same fatigue behavior. It is also concluded that the developed computational model is suitable for further development of weld quality systems., QC 20191105

Fatigue strength assessment methods by local approaches are widely used in the literature. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of published data for welded steel joints improved by TIG dressing methods. Fatigue classes for the local assessment methods with the available fatigue data are recommended. The available fatigue data extracted for transverse non-load carrying welds, cruciform joints as well as butt joints. In total, 17 published test series of weld details with various yield strengths and stress ratios are presented. Fatigue strength assessment is performed by considering the weld profile geometry within Finite Element models and taking the resulting stress gradients as basis for the evaluation. In addition, the influence of the steel grade is included. The most reliable results are derived by using the critical distance approach. Fatigue classes and critical distances are recommended as a result of the evaluations., QC 20190715

The power control of wind turbines is usually realized via a change in the pitch angle of the rotor blades. Pitching facilitates the exact control of the turbines and the reliable deceleration of the rotor when required. Pitch movements can moreover be used for load control. One of these methods is called individual pitch control (IPC). IPC controls the blades individually and brings about a significant reduction in the fatigue loads and extreme loads placed on the structural components, while at the same time reducing the yield of the turbine only slightly. The lower loads reduce material costs, and thus, the cost of energy (CoE) is reduced, despite the slight reduction in yield. The method is nevertheless not used everywhere since the additional movement cycles put the rotor blade bearings in particular under stress. Special attention must be paid to small amplitude oscillating movements, which carry a high risk of inducing surface damage in the rolling contacts of the blade bearings. This paper uses a cycle analysis of the IWT7.5-164 reference turbine to illustrate the differences in the movement patterns of wind turbine blade bearings with and without IPC. Moreover, model calculations with single contacts are used to show which of the movement patterns carries a risk of inducing surface damage. The use of IPC leads to the expected load reduction at the blade root. In current literature, IPC is usually assumed to have a negative influence on the life expectancy of blade bearings, but the findings of this study contradict this. The summed blade bearing movement is increased, although the number of very small pitch angles occurring is reduced. This reduction reduces the risk of wear in the blade bearings.

Recent advances in rheocasting have resulted in significant expansion in the types of products currently in full commercial production. The current paper gives an overview of components in production in Europe and in China produced using the RheoMetal™ process, that has taken the lead in a strong drive towards new heavy-duty applications made from aluminium alloys. In China, the dominating applications are found in the telecom industry. The trend in Europe is more towards marine and automotive applications commonly in fatigue loaded applications. The reason for the choice of rheocasting for complicated shape thin-walled electronics components with requirements is dominated by process yield and by the ability to improve thermal conductivity. The heavy-duty truck chassis thick walled components target weight reduction through design and to sustain fatigue load normally requiring forged components. Common in all applications are seen in production yield, reduced tool wear and reduction of die soldering.

The influence of a stress-relief treatment on impact and fatigue properties of Ti6Al4V ELI samples manufactured by laser powder bed fusion was analyzed. The heat treatment resulted in removal of residual stresses, coarsening of needles and formation of precipitations between needles. In both, impact and fatigue tests, crack development was correlated to microstructural features. Fracture analysis was carried out by means of optical and electron microscopy to reveal the influence of microstructure on crack development. Ductile fracture was the dominating fracture mode at impact testing. Pore formation and coalescence were the main crack formation mechanisms. The microstructural changes led to a decrease in impact toughness after heat treatment. Presumably, this was a result of the precipitations between needles. Fatigue results showed multiple crack nucleation at the surface in both, as-built and stress-relieved material. The crack propagation rate was slightly higher and the crack was less deflected in the stress-relieved material due to the stress relief and coarsening of the microstructure.

The power control of wind turbines is usually realized via a change in the pitch angle of the rotor blades. Pitching facilitates the exact control of the turbines and the reliable deceleration of the rotor when required. Pitch movements can moreover be used for load control. One of these methods is called individual pitch control (IPC). IPC controls the blades individually and brings about a significant reduction in the fatigue loads and extreme loads placed on the structural components, while at the same time reducing the yield of the turbine only slightly. The lower loads reduce material costs, and thus, the cost of energy (CoE) is reduced, despite the slight reduction in yield. The method is nevertheless not used everywhere since the additional movement cycles put the rotor blade bearings in particular under stress. Special attention must be paid to small amplitude oscillating movements, which carry a high risk of inducing surface damage in the rolling contacts of the blade bearings. This paper uses a cycle analysis of the IWT7.5-164 reference turbine to illustrate the differences in the movement patterns of wind turbine blade bearings with and without IPC. Moreover, model calculations with single contacts are used to show which of the movement patterns carries a risk of inducing surface damage. The use of IPC leads to the expected load reduction at the blade root. In current literature, IPC is usually assumed to have a negative influence on the life expectancy of blade bearings, but the findings of this study contradict this. The summed blade bearing movement is increased, although the number of very small pitch angles occurring is reduced. This reduction reduces the risk of wear in the blade bearings.

In this article, a model to estimate the evolution of surface initiated Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) is developed and applied to a heavy haul locomotive. To consider the changes in the wheel profile due to wear, a methodology based on Archard’s wear calculation theory is used. The method is based on the load collective concept, which determines a set of dynamic time-domain simulations as representative for the line. For RCF calculations a shakedown based theory is applied locally, using the FaStrip algorithm to estimate the tangential stresses instead of FASTSIM. The differences between the two algorithms regarding damage prediction models are studied. The differences are due to the accumulation of the FASTSIM error in the long-term process. The simulated crack locations and their angles are compared with a five-year field study and good agreements are achieved., QC20190418

In this work a methodology is presented to assess running gears with respect to wheel and rail rolling contact fatigue (RCF). This assessment is based on wheel/rail contact data for different wheel profile wear states taken from a wheel profile prediction methodology. The approach allows e.g. The assessment of rail RCF in different curve radii in a cumulative way (sum of damage over lifetime of wheel profiles). Furthermore, RCF assessments can be done at different wear states of the wheel profiles to get insight how the contribution to wheel and rail RCF varies depending on the evolution of the wheel profiles. The presented methodology is exemplary applied to two bogie types, the UIC-Y25 standard bogie and the so called FR8RAIL bogie with a mechanical wheelset steering device. The presented methodology is a helpful tool e.g. To optimize vehicles already in an early stage of the development process., QC20190502

This paper focuses on local strain distribution in the microstructure of high silicon ductile iron during cyclic loading. In-situ cyclic test was performed on compact-tension (CT) samples inside the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to record the whole deformation and obtain micrographs for microstructural strain measurement by means of digital image correlation (DIC) technique. Focused ion beam (FIB) milling was used to generate speckle patterns necessary for DIC measurement. The equivalent Von Mises strain distribution was measured in the microstructure at the maximum applied load. The results revealed a heterogeneous strain distribution at the microstructural level with higher strain gradients close to the notch of the CT sample and accumulated strain bands between graphite particles. Local strain ahead of the early initiated micro-cracks was quantitatively measured, showing high strain localization, which decreased by moving away from the micro-crack tip. It could be observed that the peak of strain in the field of view was not necessarily located ahead of the micro-cracks tip which could be because of the (i) strain relaxation due to the presence of other micro-cracks and/or (ii) presence of subsurface microstructural features such as graphite particles that influenced the strain concentration on the surface.