A Modified Closed Form Energy Based Framework for Fatigue Life Assessment for Aluminum 6061-T6—Damaging Energy Approach

A previously developed energy based high cycle fatigue (HCF) life assessment framework is modified to predict the low cycle fatigue (LCF) life of aluminum 6061-T6. The fatigue life assessment model of this modified framework is formulated in a closed form expression by incorporating the Ramberg–Osgood constitutive relationship. The modified framework is composed of the following entities: (1) assessment of the average strain energy density and the average plastic strain range developed in aluminum 6061-T6 during a fatigue test conducting at the ideal frequency for optimum energy calculation, and (2) determination of the Ramberg–Osgood cyclic parameters for aluminum 6061-T6 from the average strain energy density and the average plastic strain range. By this framework, the applied stress range is related to the fatigue life by a power law whose parameters are functions of the fatigue toughness and the cyclic parameters. The predicted fatigue lives are found to be in a good agreement with the experimental data.