Experimental, theoretical and numerical fatigue damage estimation using a temperature modified Dirlik method

• A proposed (TMDK) method is theoretically, experimentally and numerically validated successfully.
• The validation is performed on standard specimens made of aluminium alloy AlSi9Cu3.
• TMDK method enables fatigue damage estimation for the frequency based fatigue including the temperature effect.
• It enables computationally fast fatigue damage estimation.

This article describes experimental, theoretical and numerical fatigue damage estimation using a temperature modified Dirlik method. The method enables an estimation of high cycle fatigue damage for uniaxial loadings caused by random vibrations directly from power spectral analyses with the temperature effect. Preliminary investigations of high cycle fatigue properties of high pressure die-cast aluminium alloy AlSi9Cu3 have been carried out at elevated temperatures. Standard and non-standard fatigue tests have been performed to determine the temperature dependent S–N curves. Simultaneously, fatigue damage estimation was carried out numerically with commercial programmes Ansys Workbench and LMS Virtual.Lab using finite element methods. Finally, the numerical simulation results are compared with both experimental and theoretical results. The temperature modified Dirlik method enables a computationally fast fatigue damage estimation of random stress loadings and temperature histories.