On the fatigue failure and life prediction for notched specimens

We present a brief description of some typical macromechanical models for fatigue-life prediction. According to their theoretical bases, they can be classified as hot-spot, average-stress, stress-field-intensity, and volumetric approaches. We propose a new model largely based on the stress-field-intensity and volumetric approaches, capable of giving better description of the role of the most important factors acting in the process of fatigue failure, and promoting subsequent unification of the theories of fatigue failure. The proposed approaches are compared with the results of fatigue tests.