Fatigue crack growth and failure of inelastic rods based on rheological–dynamical analogy

This paper presents a study on how the rheological–dynamical analogy (RDA) can be used to predict new notch stress intensities of inelastic rods, where such intensities can be employed to examine the fatigue crack growth and failure. The analogy stems from the mathematical analogy between the rheological model and the viscous damping dynamical model. Physical basis for the introduction of such an analogy is the elastic wave propagation. Based on this theory, notch-induced fatigue crack growth and failure of rods are quantified by some characterizing parameters namely, fatigue failure frequency, crack depth, fatigue strength, cyclic toughness, crack width, crack opening displacement and cyclic stress intensity factor range. A number of experimental results reported in the literature are used to support the present analysis which indicates that the RDA method provides a possible means for examining fatigue effects.