Estimating Fatigue Related Damage in Alloys under Block-type Non-symmetrical Low-cycle Loading

International audienceProcesses of plastic deformation and damage accumulation in poly-crystalline structural alloys are investigated under block-type, nonstationary, non-symmetric cyclic loading. In the framework of damage mechanics, a mathematical model is proposed that effectively describes elastoplastic deformation and fatigue related damage accumulation processes under low-cycle loading. This model can be subsumed under three main parts: the relations defining elastoplastic behavior of the material; the equations describing damage accumulation kinetics; the strength criterion of the damaged material. For validating the model, we perform a numerical analysis and a comparison with the data from full-scale experiments. We demonstrate that the proposed model qualitatively and quantitatively describes the main effects of plastic deformation and damage accumulation processes in structural alloys under complex loading scenarios. Moreover, fatigue related lifetime of the structure is accurately captured by this model as well