A verification of the assumption of anti-fatigue design

Abstract In this paper, the approaches of anti-fatigue design are briefly reviewed and are classified into three groups: nominal stress approach, local stress–strain approach and stress field intensity approach. Two types, each with two notches, are specially designed and a total of 30 specimens with 4 dimensions are tested under different constant–amplitude loading. These specimens are also analysed with elasto-plastic FEM to obtain stress–strain distributions and stress concentration factors. Fatigue life is estimated based on the different approaches. Experimental and analytical results show that the assumption of stress field intensity is more reasonable than that of the other approaches.