Direct modeling of multi-axial fatigue failure for metals

Innovative elastoplastic J2−flow models with nonlinear combined hardening are proposed for the purpose of simulating multi-axial thermo-coupled fatigue failure for metals and alloys, in a direct sense without involving any usual damage-like variables and any ad hoc failure criteria. As contrasted with usual models, the yield condition and the loading-unloading conditions need not be imposed as extrinsic coercive conditions but may be automatically incorporated into a free, smooth flow rule in a more realistic sense. Novel results in three respects are available directly from model predictions, namely, (i) complex features of thermo-coupled fatigue failure may be automatically represented by simple asymptotic properties of the hardening functions introduced, (ii) critical failure states may be derived with a criterion in unified form, and, in particular, (iii) direct procedures may be established for determining fatigue lives under either stress cycles or thermal cycles. Simulation results in the simplest cases of the proposed model are in good agreement with experimental data.