Equivalent energy-based critical plane fatigue damage parameter for multiaxial LCF under variable amplitude loading

Abstract Combining the concept of energy on the critical plane, a multiaxial fatigue damage parameter without any weight coefficient was proposed and the effects of non-proportional additional hardening and mean stress on fatigue damage can be reflected more perfectly using an equivalent form of shear strain energy. Furthermore, two sets of experimental data are employed to verify the proposed method, and the sensitiveness to fatigue life of the proposed equivalent stress correction factor is discussed as well. The results show that satisfactory and conservative assessments can be obtained by the proposed method, especially under multiaxial irregular loading with great randomness.