Recent Development and Applications of Peridynamics to Fatigue Failure Analysis: A Critical Review

Peridynamics (PD) provides a nonlocal framework for modeling fatigue damage and evolving cracks without prescribing their final paths. This review examines how mechanical formulations, cyclic constitutive models, and fatigue laws determine PD predictions across crack initiation, propagation, and total life. Applications to variable‐amplitude loading, interacting cracks, heterogeneous materials, and environmental coupling are assessed. Experimental support is strongest for stable crack propagation, whereas independent validation remains limited for initiation sites and lives, life distributions in high‐ and very‐high‐cycle fatigue, and total‐life prediction beyond calibration conditions. The central gap is linking interaction‐level damage to experimentally observed crack formation and short‐crack growth. Reliable application requires appropriate constitutive models, identifiable parameters, numerical convergence, and independent validation. Priorities include measurements of life spent in successive fatigue stages, uncertainty assessment, efficient cycle advancement that preserves fatigue history, and verified coupling between PD and finite element models.