Development of new finite elements for fatigue life prediction in structural components

An energy-based fatigue life prediction framework was previously developed by the authors for prediction of axial and bending fatigue life at various stress ratios. The framework for the prediction of fatigue life via energy analysis was based on a new constitutive law, which states the following: the amount of energy required to fracture a material is constant. In this study, the energy expressions that construct the new constitutive law are integrated into minimum potential energy formulation to develop new finite elements for uniaxial and bending fatigue life prediction. The comparison of finite element method (FEM) results to existing experimental fatigue data, verifies the new finite elements for fatigue life prediction. The final output of this finite element analysis is in the form of number of cycles to failure for each element in ascending or descending order. Therefore, the new finite element framework can provide the number of cycles to failure for each element in structural components. The performance of the fatigue finite elements is demonstrated by the fatigue life predictions from Al6061-T6 aluminum and Ti-6Al-4V. Results are compared with experimental results and analytical predictions.