Accelerated Fatigue-Testing Improvements-from Road to Laboratory

This paper describes a technique for programming accelerated laboratory fatigue tests which is called the “peak-valley-pair” (P-V-P) method. As presented, the P-V-P method applies to automotive structural components which are insensitive to frequency and subjected to unidirectional loading.

The P-V-P algorithm operates on the measured service responses of the component (displacement, load, strain, etc.) to yield the control signal for a laboratory fatigue test. Associated data processing and an example of this methodology are also presented.