Development of Pressurized Disc Type Fatigue Testing System for Equi-Biaxial Fatigue
Takashi TSUJI and Masayuki KAMAYA
Abstract:A testing method for investigating fatigue strength under equi-biaxial stress/strain condition was developed. In this method, the equi-biaxial stress condition was achieved by applying pressure on the surfaces of a disc-type specimen, for which the disc edge was constrained by supporting jigs. Air pressure was used to apply the cyclic loading and the failure of the specimen was determined by detecting the crack penetration of the specimen thickness. This method allows application of the cyclic equi-biaxial stress without a complex testing apparatus or a complex controlling system such as the testing system using the cruciform or tubular specimens, conventionally used for the fatigue test under the equi-biaxial stress condition. After developing the testing system, the configuration of the disc-type specimen was designed by finite element analysis so that a crack would be initiated at the center of the specimen. Then, carbon steel (SS400 in JIS) specimens were subjected to the fatigue test. The developed system was demonstrated to be able to initiate a fatigue crack at the center of the specimen and to detect the specimen failure successfully. The test results showed that the fatigue lifetime under equi-biaxial stress was longer than that under uniaxial stress for the same Von Mises equivalent strain range. Key Words:Fatigue failure, Equi-biaxial, Membranous pressure, Thermal fatigue, Mises equivalent strain, Principal strain