Implementation of Dirlik’s damage model for the vibration fatigue analysis

Mechanical fatigue is an important phenomenon when the structures are exposed to dynamic, fluctuating loadings. Especially aerospace structures are commonly exposed to random vibration loadings. In this paper, random vibration fatigue is studied both numerically and experimentally. For this purpose, a rectangular cross-section notched beam is designed in order to conduct the vibration fatigue analysis in the frequency domain by the Dirlik’s damage model. Aluminum and steel notched beams are prepared in order to carry out the vibration fatigue tests to compare with the fatigue analysis results. The effect of modal damping on the vibration fatigue analysis results is particularly studied.