Engineering Method for Calculating the Limiting Amplitudes of Stress Cycles for Structural Steels

In large-sized metal structures, various stress concentrators are often present, which affects the operation of the material. These are intermittent bonds, holes, welded joints, material defects, etc. As a result of overloads under the action of an external cyclic load on structures in the area of stress raisers, the cycle asymmetry, the level of maximum stresses and deformations increase. In this case, the determination of the limit values of the stress cycles can be performed using a diagram of the limit stress amplitudes. The paper presents an engineering method for calculating the limiting stress amplitudes and constructing Hay’s diagrams. It is based on the use of mathematical models of classical linear and structural-mechanical fracture mechanics. Analytically and by calculation, the validity of the method is shown, which consists in determining the endurance limits and limiting stress amplitudes under high-cycle loading in a wide range of variation of the cycle asymmetry coefficient for ferrite-pearlite steels with a yield strength of up to 400 MPa. Thus, a generalized calculation method has been developed for determining the endurance limits for high values of cycle asymmetry and cycle stresses. The error of the method is estimated in the area of low-cycle load. The influence of constant and average load in a cycle on the endurance limit has been investigated both for high-cycle and low-cycle loading. The proposed approach allows to construct Smith and Hay’s fatigue diagrams for the tensile region, taking into account the structural characteristics of the material and the error allowed for engineering calculations.