Fast estimation of the shear stress amplitude for fatigue life analysis of metals

Abstract The aim of this paper is to propose a numerical approach for computing the shear stress amplitude during one loading cycle. The analysis is based on the material history in the space of the deviator. It is shown that the calculated maximal amplitude can be used as a satisfactory upper estimate of the amplitude obtained with critical plane theories. The main benefit of this approach is its very low CPU time consuming compared to the algorithms used in the literature. By this way, the proposed approach allows analyzing a high number of material points in the case of the FEM analysis of a structure or a high number of temporal points in the case of an experimental high frequency measurement. Examples are presented to show the relevance and the efficiency of the numerical algorithm proposed.