On the applicability of Miner’s rule for multiaxial fatigue life calculations under non-proportional load histories

Fatigue design routines and computer codes must use some damage accumulation rule to deal with variable amplitude loadings (VAL), usually Palmgren-Miner (or Miner’s) linear rule for lack of a clearly better option. Nevertheless, fatigue lives are intrinsically sensitive to the order of VAL events, which may e.g. induce residual stresses and thus change the critical point stress state, much affecting its subsequent residual life. On the other hand, in general, non-linear damage accumulation rules are not robust, resulting in better predictions than Miner’s rule only for some specific load orders, requiring a case-by-case analysis. Therefore, Miner’s linear damage rule still is the usual choice in practical fatigue calculations and assessments, giving reasonable predictions at least when properly combined with approaches that sequentially consider plasticity-induced effects, following the critical point stress/strain history in a cycle-by-cycle basis. In this work, Miner’s rule is evaluated for non-proportional tension-torsion loadings on annealed tubular 316L stainless steel specimens. Normal-shear strain histories following either cross, diamond, circular or square paths are applied, and their fatigue lives are measured. Then, more complex VAL paths consisting of combinations of these individual path shapes are applied in other specimens, whose associated fatigue lives are predicted based on Miner’s rule.