Fatigue strength analysis of notched aluminium specimens using the highly stressed volume method

This paper describes a methodology to analyse the fatigue strength of notched aluminium 7075 T7531 specimens using the highly stressed volume method. A straightforward test setup was developed to load test samples with different stress concentrations in repeated bending at high frequency. The highly stressed volumes are precisely determined using static finite element analysis in combination with Matlab for post‐processing. Mean values of the local endurable stress amplitudes are calculated by means of the staircase method. The results indicate that the highly stressed volume can be used as an accurate and efficient design parameter to take the notch‐effect in aluminium components into account.