Multiaxial High Cycle Fatigue Criteria Based on Fracture Plane Identification: Applicability to Metallic Materials

Two multiaxial high cycle fatigue criteria pertaining to the critical plane-based approach are reviewed. The models were proposed by Carpinteri and Spagnoli (C&S) and Liu and Mahadevan (L&M), and unlike other models based on the same approach, they have the critical plane directly correlated with the fatigue fracture plane. As the aim of this study is mainly to compare their capability to predict fatigue failure, the two models were applied to a number of published experimental fatigue tests, involving synchronous sinusoidal in-phase and out-of-phase bending and torsion. The results indicate that both models possess good predictive capability under fully reversed stresses, with the L&M model being on the average slightly more conservative. Applying, to the same loading conditions, a mesoscopic scale-based approach proposed by Papadopoulos, one can verify that its predictive capability is as good as those corresponding to the C&S and L&M criteria. However, in the presence of superimposed mean stresses, the capability of these two models to predict fatigue behavior is seen to be considerably lower than that detected for Papadopoulos’.