Issue 30

G. Meneghetti et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 30 (2014) 191-200; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.30.25 197 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 -1 t=t i 1 2 3 4 5 -1.2·10 -3 -10 -3 -8·10 -4 -6·10 -4 -4·10 -4 -2·10 -4 0 2·10 -4  [MPa] T the /T 0 time [s]  = 297 MPa MPa/s 54   T 0 =301.25 K t=t f Figure 7 : Example of static test and measured thermoelastic temperature variation. The K m values measured in all static tests are collected in Fig. 8. It can be observed that by increasing the applied stress rate, the scatter of the K m values decreases and that a 5.4% variation of the K m mean value was noticed (from 3.86·10 -12 to 3.65·10 -12 Pa -1 ), by increasing the stress rate of a factor about 2 (from 37 to 73 MPa/s). Therefore from an engineering point of view, it can be concluded that adiabatic conditions can be reached by imposing a stress rate higher than 37 MPa/s, at least for the material and test conditions analysed in this paper. The final K m value adopted was equal to 3.75·10 -12 Pa - 1, being the mean value measured for   =37, 54 e 73 MPa/s; it is in good agreement with the theoretical value of 3.97·10 -12 Pa -1 that can be calculated by using Eq. (4) and assuming  =16·10 -6 K -1 . 3 3.25 3.5 3.75 4 4.25 4.5 4.75 5 0 20 40 60 80 5 MPa/s 19 MPa/s 37 MPa/s 54 MPa/s 73 MPa/s K m [10 -12 Pa -1 ] [MPa/s]   Figure 8 : Experimental evaluation of the thermoelastic constant K m of the analysed material. THE NEW TWO - PARAMETER , ENERGY - BASED APPROACH APPLIED TO THE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS fter evaluating the thermoelastic constant K m , the thermoelastic temperature relevant to each specimen was calculated according to Eq. (4). Having in hands Q, 0 the T T and the number of cycles to failure N f for each coupon, the parameters h and m of Eq. (5) were calculated. In more detail, the experimental results were plotted in a Q- 0 / the T T plane, for a given number of cycles to failure, as shown in Fig. 9. By considering the available number of data and independently of the load ratio R, the fatigue results were divided in 4 groups, characterized by a different range of the number of cycles to failure (N f ≤ 10000 cycles; 20000 ≤ N f ≤ 60000 cycles; 80000 ≤ N f ≤ 120000 cycles e 300000 ≤ N f ≤ 800000 cycles). A