Materials Science and Engineering A 483484 (2008) 440443

Prediction of fatigue limits of surface-hardened steel with regard

to mean stresses and residual stressesA comparison
Frank Jablonski

, Johanna Varvarikes
Fachbereich Produktionstechnik, Fachgebiet Technische Mechanik-Strukturmechanik,
Universit at Bremen, Am Biologischen Garten 2, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Received 6 June 2006; received in revised form 29 September 2006; accepted 29 September 2006
Abstract
Hardened parts are used to minimize abrasion at contact surfaces and to extend the lifetime of machine components. Different risks to failure,
and therefore, different fatigue limits result from imperfections, notches and surface properties. Two methods for calculating fatigue limits of
surface-hardened parts are presented and compared. The rst method is based on Weibulls weakest-link concept which allows to compute survival
probabilities of parts with inhomogeneous material properties, the second method is the concept of local fatigue strength. The essential quantities
in both models are the distribution of Vickers hardness, the residual stress state, the surface roughness and if necessary the surface oxidation
depth. The model parameters have to be determined from reference specimens. Both models are successfully validated by comparing experimental
and calculated results established with both smooth and notched specimen under different loading conditions.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Endurance limit; Weakest-link concept; Local fatigue limit; Surface hardening
1. Introduction
Surface-hardened steels (for example case-hardened or laser-
hardened) are widelyusedinthe eldof mechanical engineering,
especially when low abrasion is required. The experimental
determination of the strength of surface-hardened parts under
cyclic loading is a procedure with a large amount of costs due to
the expenditure of material and testing time. In order to reduce
the number of experiments considerably, calculation methods
are needed which allowthe consideration of different inuences
like load type, stress multiaxiality, stress gradient and notch
effects. Moreover, the inuence of residual stresses and mean
stresses are to be considered.
Fatigue failure of machine parts with inhomogeneous mate-
rial properties under inhomogeneous stress conditions may
occur either at the materials surface or inside the material.
Therefore, a separated view on the surface and the volume of
the material is necessary.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 421 218 4452; fax: +49 421 218 7478.
E-mail address: fj@mechanik.uni-bremen.de (F. Jablonski).
2. Advanced weakest-link concept
The presented model is based on Weibulls weakest-link con-
cept [1], which allows to compute the survival probability of
specimens and parts which are loaded close to the fatigue limit.
It can be applied in the transition region of the stress-cycle dia-
gram and it assigns to each element of volume V and each
element of surface S a survival probability P
S
. The survival
probability is a function of the local equivalent stress amplitude

a,eq
, the local fatigue limit
W
and the element size [2,3]:
P
S
(S) = 2
S((
a,eq
(x,y,z))/(
WS
(x,y,z)))
m
S
(1)
P
S
(V) = 2
V((
a,eq
(x,y,z))/(
WV
(x,y,z)))
m
V
(2)
In these equations m
S
and m
V
are the exponents of the distribu-
tion which have to be determined experimentally.
The local fatigue limits
WS
and
WV
depend on the local
Vickers hardness (HV) and can be expressed by a relation fol-
lowing Murakami for specimens tested without mean stresses
and residual stresses [4]:

WS0
= F
S
(HV +120)Y
SO
Y
R
(3)

WV0
= F
V
(HV +120) (4)
0921-5093/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2006.09.129
F. Jablonski, J. Varvarikes / Materials Science and Engineering A 483484 (2008) 440443 441
In Eq. (3) two inuence factors are used of which Y
R
is the
surface roughness coefcient according to German DIN 3990
[5] and Y
SO
is a diminution factor to describe the decrease of
strength due to surface oxidation [6]:
Y
R
= 1.49 0.471(R
z
+1)
0.1
(5)
Y
SO
=

x
0
x
0
+x
SO
(6)
where R
z
is the surface roughness, x
SO
the surface oxidation
depth and x
0
is a t parameter.
In case of multiaxial stresses caused by notches or combined
load cases, the calculation of a local equivalent stress amplitude

a,eq
is necessary. Subsequently, the principal-normal-stress cri-
terion (NH), the criterion after von-Mises (VM) and the criterion
after Dang Van et al. (DV) are used [7]. The effects of mean
stresses and residual stresses are considered in the materials
strength for NH and VM hypothesis:

WS/V
=
WS/V0

HV H
0S/V
867

lm
+
3

i=1

RS
i

(7)
where HV is the local Vickers hardness,
lm
the local mean
stress,
RS
i
the local residual stresses and H
0S/V
are material
parameters for the surface and the volume [2,3].
For the DV hypothesis, the effects of mean and residual
stresses are considered in the local equivalent stress amplitude
[2,3]:

a,DV
=

a,max
+
HV
3H
S/V

i=1
(
ia
+
im
) +
3

i=1

RS
i

1
2
+
1
3
HV
H
S/V
(8)
where
ia
is the local principal stress amplitude,
im
the local
mean stress,
RS
i
the local residual stress and H
S/V
are t param-
eters for the surface and the volume.
The survival probabilityof the entire part is calculatedbyinte-
grating the survival probabilities of the surface and the volume,
which allows to compute the fatigue limit:
P
S
(S) = 2

S
((
a,eq
(x,y,z))/(
WS
(x,y,z)))
m
S dS
(9)
P
S
(V) = 2

V
((
a,eq
(x,y,z))/(
WV
(x,y,z)))
m
V
dV
(10)
P
S,tot
= P
S
(S)P
S
(A) (11)
To calculate the local and global survival probabilities, the
knowledge of the stress states resulting from external loads and
residual stresses is necessary. Therefore, for complex parts the
use of a nite element program is required.
3. Concept of local fatigue strengths
The second model presented in this work is based on a local
stress/strength-ratio where the inuence of mean stresses and
residual stresses is considered using a relation according to
Haibach [8]:

W
=
W0

1
M

i=1

im
+
RS
i

W0

(12)
in which Mis a material dependent mean stress sensitivity factor.
The local fatigue limit
W0
can be calculated using Eq. (3) for
the components surface and Eq. (4) for the volume.
Taking the effect of local stress gradients into account by
using a relation according to H uck, Thrainer and Sch utz [9], the
local stress/strength-ratio can be written as follows:

a,eq
(x, y, z)

D
(x, y, z)
=

a,eq
(x, y, z)

W
(1 +
H

)
. (13)
where =(1/
1,max
)(d
1
/dx) is the local specic stress gradient,

a,eq
the local equivalent stress amplitude and
H
and are mate-
rial parameters. For steel the values of
H
=0.45 and =0.30 are
given [9]. The local equivalent stress amplitude can be expressed
by the principal-normal-stress criterion, the criterion after von-
Mises and the criterion after Dang Van. In this model, the mean
stresses and residual stresses are considered on the materials
strength side, which leads to the following expression for Dang
Vans criterion:

a,DV
=

a,max
+
HV
3H
S/V

i=1
(
ia
)

1
2
+
1
3
HV
H
S/V
(14)
Failure of the component occurs when the local equivalent
stress amplitude exceeds the local strength.
4. Specimen properties
For the verication of both models, smooth and notched
axisymmetric specimens are investigatedwhichare loadedunder
alternating torsion (AT), rotating bending (RB), repeated ten-
sion (RT) and tension-compression (TC). The diameter of the
net cross-sectional area is 6 mm and the radii of the investigated
notches are 1 and 0.2 mm. The material is 16MnCrS5 according
to European Norm DIN EN 10132-2 which is similar to a SAE
5115.
The residual stress state is determined by radiographic mea-
surements and, therefore, a removal of material is necessary to
achieve the residual stresses in dependence on the surface dis-
tance. This leads to a rearrangement of the stress state and the
necessity to carry out equilibrium iterations which is done using
FEM. A detailed description of these numerical equilibrium
iterations is given in ref. [3].
The required experiments have been performed by Stiftung
Institut f ur Werkstofftechnik(IWT) inBremen, Germanyandthe
details of the experimental procedure may be found in ref. [10].
In Table 1, all tested geometries and load cases are arranged.
442 F. Jablonski, J. Varvarikes / Materials Science and Engineering A 483484 (2008) 440443
Table 1
Tested geometries and load cases
Load case Test length (smooth specimen)
(mm)
Notch ground radius (notched specimen)
(mm)
Stress ratio
Rotating bending (RB) 5 1
Rotating bending (RB) 50 1
Rotating bending (RB) 1 1
Rotating bending (RB) 0.2 1
Alternating torsion (AT) 30 1
Alternating torsion (AT) 1 1
Alternating torsion (AT) 0.2 1
Tension-compression (TC) 1 1
Tension-compression (TC) 0.2 1
Repeated tension (RT) 1 0.1
Repeated tension (RT) 1 0.5
Repeated tension (RT) 0.2 0.1
Fig. 1. Calculated fatigue limit in comparison with the experimental determined
fatigue limit (advanced weakest-link concept).
5. Calculation results
Both presented models contain material dependent parame-
ters which have to be determined experimentally. Therefore a
set of reference specimens is necessary for each model. Based
on this set of reference parameters the fatigue limits of other
specimens can be predicted.
Fig. 1 shows the calculation results of the advanced weakest-
link concept using the Dang Van criterion. The results obtained
withthe concept of local fatigue strengths are illustratedinFig. 2.
Both models are able to predict the fatigue limit with a satis-
factory accuracy. The relative error is less than 10% using Dang
Vans equivalent stress criterion.
6. Summary and comparison
Two models for calculating fatigue limits of components
loaded in the transition region of the stress-cycle diagram are
compared. The advanced weakest-link concept allows to com-
pute local and global failure probabilities as well as the global
endurance limit. This is done with a signicant effort of numer-
ical investigations. A considerable simpler model is the concept
of local fatigue strengths which also allows to predict the global
Fig. 2. Calculated fatigue limit in comparison with the experimental determined
fatigue limit (concept of local fatigue strengths).
endurance limit of a component as well as the likely position of
failure. But in contrast to the weakest-link concept one cannot
give local failure probabilities, which is a loss of information.
Both models offer a satisfactory accuracy.
The essential quantities in the presented models are the dis-
tribution of Vickers hardness, the exponents of the Weibull
distribution of the surface and the volume and the residual stress
state. The surface roughness and surface oxidation depth are
included by means of diminution factors. Local strengths are
characterized with Murakamis relation, the multiaxiality of the
stress state is expressed by equivalent stresses using, for exam-
ple, von Mises or Dang Vans criterion.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr.-Ing. H. Bomas and his
group for performing the experiments to measure the residual
stresses, hardness distributions and fatigue limits.
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