Evaluation of Multiaxial Fatigue Life Prediction Methodologies for Ti-6Al-4V

Many critical engineering components are routinely subjected to cyclic multiaxial stress states, which may include non-proportional loading and multidimensional mean stresses. Existing multiaxial fatigue models are examined to determine their suitability at estimating fatigue damage in Ti-6Al-4V under complex, multiaxial loading, with an emphasis on long-life conditions. Both proportional and non-proportional strain-controlled tension/torsion experiments were conducted on solid specimens. Several multiaxial fatigue damage parameters are evaluated based on their ability to correlate the biaxial fatigue data and uniaxial fatigue data with tensile mean stresses (R>−1) to a fully-reversed (R=−1) uniaxial baseline. Both equivalent stress-based models and critical plane approaches are evaluated. Only one equivalent stress model and two critical plane models showed promise for the range of loadings and material considered.