Low Cycle Fatigue Lives of Notched Components

Abstract— In low cycle fatigue situations, the plastic behaviour of the material at the root of stress concentrators is of prime importance in determining the cyclic life. However, simple procedures such as Neuber's rule do not adequately describe the development of plastic behaviour at a notch root, while the expense of a finite element analysis is not justified in many instances. This paper describes a simple, approximate numerical method of calculating plastic notch stresses and strains that would be of use in such situations. The usefulness of the technique is demonstrated by comparing low cycle fatigue lives predicted from notch plastic strains with those determined by fatigue testing of smooth specimens subjected to similar plastic strain ranges.