Issue 41

M.V.C Sá et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 41 (2017) 90-97; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.41.13 92 The value of  a is here computed by the Maximum Rectangular Hull (MRH) method. It is based on the combination of shear stress amplitudes associated to mutually orthogonal directions on a material plane, and therefore it is capable to distinguish between the damage caused by proportional and non-proportional shear stress paths. The MRH method is well described elsewhere [7,12,13] and space only preclude us to provide a more detailed explanation about the method. More interested readers are invited to visit such references. The stress gradient effect is accounted by the Theory of Critical Distances (TCD) [8-11] due to its simplicity. The central idea in the TCD is the definition of an effective stress, based on an averaging procedure over a volume surrounding the stress raiser. Fatigue failure is expected to occur if this effective stress exceeds a reference material fatigue strength. Simplified methods can also be formulated by considering averages over an area or a line (Area and Line Methods, respectively) or the stress at a point located at a critical distance, L , from the stress raiser (Point Method). The Point Method is used in this work. At the medium-cycle fatigue regime, L , depends on the number of cycles to failure, N f . A power law relationship is used to relate L and N f , i.e.,    b f f L N AN (2) where A and b are material constants. The fitting procedures to obtain these constants require two fatigue curves generated by testing plain and sharply notched specimens. Although such curve has been usually determined for fully reversed push-pull tests ( L  – N f ), here we would like to investigate the effect of the torsion mode on the analysis, hence a similar relationship ( L  – N f ) will be raised from torsion tests of plain and notched specimens too. M ATERIAL AND METHODS he methodology developed for the aim of this work involves experimental and numerical procedures. In the experimental field, fatigue tests were performed in order to obtain the σ-N and τ-N curves for the plain and the notched specimens, whose geometry and dimensions are shown in Fig. 1 (a) and (b), respectively. All specimens were made of an aluminum alloy 7050 T-7451. Tab. 1 reports the main mechanical properties of the material applied in this research. Tensile Yield Strength Ultimate Tensile Strength Modulus of Elasticity Poisson´s Ratio 453 [MPa] 513 [MPa] 73 [GPa] 0.33 Table 1 : mechanical properties of Al 7050-T7451. (a) (b) Figure 1: (a) Plain and (b) notched fatigue specimens. The plain specimens were designed according to ASTM E 606 standard while the notched ones were designed seeking to achieve the sharpest notch that could be accurately machined and that could satisfy the relation proposed by [14]. This relation requires that the ratio between the radius of the notch root and the net diameter of the notched specimen be smaller than 0.01. In conjunction with the Point Method, this relation allows predictions of  K th with an acceptable  20% error band. The uniaxial fatigue curves were generated according to ASTM E 739 standard. In this way, for each T