Critical plane based method for multiaxial fatigue analysis of 316 stainless steel

•New multiaxial fatigue characterisation of 316 steel including high mean deformation and non-proportional load paths.•Compression induces a lower strain range thereby increasing the fatigue life.•Thorough and independent analysis of newly proposed critical plane method (Lei-Gan) indicates an acceptable performance.•The most accurate model for estimating the fatigue life of 316 steel is Liu II.•Fatemi-Socie yields the best estimations in terms of cracking angle. In this work, the fatigue behaviour of 316 stainless steel is studied with different critical plane models. Seven cylindrical samples were used for the study, being subjected to different complex loading paths, generating combined stresses along the axial and transversal sample directions, these being: individual axial stress, individual hoop stress, alternating axial and hoop stress, a proportional combination of axial and hoop stress, and a non-proportional combination of L-shaped and square-shaped axial and hoop stress. The fatigue analysis is performed using five critical plane models; named Fatemi-Socie, Varvani-Farahani, Gan-Wu-Zhong, Liu I and Liu II. The models were assessed based on their fatigue life and crack angle prediction capacity. The Gan-Wu-Zhong recently proposed critical plane model was examined and provided acceptable results for the multiaxial loads tested on 316 steel. Nevertheless, Fatemi-Socie produced the most accurate results in terms of cracking orientation and Liu II gave the best fatigue life predictions.