Determination of high cycle fatigue properties of a wide range of steel sheet grades from self-heating measurements

•16 Steel sheet grades are studied.•A unique procedure to measure self-heating under cyclic loadings is proposed.•For all the grades two distinct self-heating regimes are obtained.•An original model is proposed, the parameters of which are identified from self-heating measurements.•This model allows a good prediction of the SNP curves to be obtained.

The development of a self-heating method, based on self-heating measurements is proposed in order to predict S–N–P curves (i.e., amplitude stress-number of cycles to failure-probability of failure). Two dissipative phenomena can be observed on self-heating curves for the 16 steel grades of interest, the first for low amplitudes of cyclic loading and the second for higher amplitudes. In order to predict the fatigue properties accurately, a two scale probabilistic model, with two dissipative mechanisms (to account for the two dissipative phenomena) is proposed. Finally, the prediction made using the proposed approach is validated by its comparison with traditional fatigue tests, thus demonstrating time-saving advantages in the determination of steel grade fatigue properties.