Three energy-based multiaxial HCF criteria for fatigue life determination in components under random non-proportional stress fields

The prominent high cycle fatigue (HCF) criteria have been generally proposed based on definition of an equivalent stress that is mainly a modified version of a static failure criterion or a static yield function. One or more effects including the mean normal and shear stresses, different phase shifts or random frequencies of the stress components, relative instantaneous time variations of the stress components, relative time locations of the extrema of the time histories of the stress components, etc. have not been considered by many of the previously proposed criteria. In the present paper, based on the proposed instantaneous stress amplitude and mean stress concepts, three new energy-based HCF criteria are proposed to overcome the mentioned shortcomings. A relevant fatigue life assessment algorithm is proposed and results of the prominent criteria are compared with results of the proposed criteria as well as the experimental results prepared by the author. To introduce a comprehensive study, the criteria are examined for components with complicated geometries under proportional, non-proportional and random loadings. Results confirm the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed criteria. Furthermore, it is deduced that the Liu–Zenner type criteria which include the hydrostatic stress implicitly are more accurate than the Papadopoulos-type criteria that consider the hydrostatic stress explicitly.