A new comprehensive model of damage for flexural subassemblies prone to fatigue

Fatigue resistance is a key performance for the life-cycle sustainability of materials and structures. Structural members subjected to flexural forces such as spring hinges in origami structures are one of the most commonly existing in nature and engineering practice but predicting their fatigue resistance is a challenge because of complex mechanisms of crack localization, nonstationary amplitudes in the time domain, and the influence of stress gradient due to bending moment. We developed a general lumped damage simulation model for predicting the fatigue life and the associated crack propagation in the full range of elastic and plastic amplitudes. It is found that the developed comprehensive damage model demonstrates a new perspective for fatigue-induced remaining life quantification for engineering structures. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Fatigue resistance is crucial for the life-cycle sustainability of materials and structures, yet predicting the fatigue resistance of structural members subjected to flexural forces remains a challenge. Developing a general lumped damage simulation model can offer a new perspective for quantifying fatigue-induced remaining life for engineering structures across elastic and plastic amplitudes.