Fatigue Life Prediction from Short Duration Tests

Prediction of the fatigue life of vehicle components from strain histories measured over relatively short test circuits is a useful technique for the vehicle engineer. This paper describes a fatigue damage estimation routine based on rainflow counting, the strain-life relationship suggested by Morrow, and the Palmgren-Miner cumulative damage hypothesis. A novel approach is presented for solving the strain-life relationship for damage per cycle. The paper discusses the application of extreme value analysis to the prediction of long term cumulative fatigue damage from a short duration test.