Fatigue Design

Abstract

The term fatigue design is a misnomer, what is meant is assessment of an existing design against the possibility of fatigue failure. The possibility of failure due to metal fatigue is only one of the factors that have to be considered during the design of an engineering component or structure. Usually, fatigue behaviour is checked only after basic design decisions have been taken. There are many successful structures which have been designed without any specific attention to the possibility of fatigue failure. A fatigue assessment sometimes shows that an initial design has to be modified in order to ensure that the product performs as required for its intended lifetime. Where the possibility of fatigue failure is a major preoccupation, design and fatigue assessments are integrated in an iterative approach.