The objective of this study was to determine the applicability of an approach to predict the number of cycles of fatigue loading of a structure to failure.In the present investigation, notched structural elementswere subjected to constant amplitude loading with a maximum stress of 15ksi and mean stress of 6ksialong with periodic tensile overloads of 20ksi. Miner’s rule was used to estimate the cycles to failure, and a second analytical approach,that incorporated the notch residual stress caused by the first overload in the Miner’s rule, was used to estimate the number of cycles of load to failure.The predicted fatigue life using the second approach agreed with the experimentally determined fatigue life better than that of the first approach.

Paper presented to the 6th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex, Wichita State University, April 23, 2010.