Transition From Low Cycle to High Cycle in Uniaxial Fatigue

Fatigue is the most critical failure mode of many mechanical component. Therefore, fatigue life assessment under fluctuating loads during component development is essential. The most important requirement for any fatigue life assessment is knowledge of the relationships between stresses, strains, and fatigue life for the material under consideration. These relationships, for any given material, are mostly unique and dependent on its fatigue behavior. Since the work of Wöhler in the 1850’s, the uniaxial stress versus cycles to fatigue failure, which is known as the S-N curve, is typically utilized for high-cycle fatigue. In general, high cycle fatigue implies linear elastic behavior and causes failure after more than 104 or 105 cycles. However. the transition from low cycle fatigue to high cycle fatigue, which is unique for each material based on its properties, has not been well examined. In this paper, this transition is studied and a material dependent number of cycles for the transition is derived based on the material properties. Some implications of this derivation, on assessing and approximating the crack initiation fatigue life, are also discussed.