LAUSR

Abstract Fatigue damage and consequent failure account for the majority of the failure in metallic bolted joints of aerospace and mechanical engineering applications. In this paper, we present a cumulative fatigue damage evaluation approach for metallic bolted joints based on a combined continuum damage mechanics (CDM) theory and the critical plane approach. The analysis approach is applicable to both proportional and non-proportional multiaxial loading conditions. A cycle jumping based algorithm with a fixed damage evolution rate is adopted for efficient numerical approximation. To further increase the computational efficiency, a simplified modeling strategy is developed to avoid the expensive calculation of the full loading-unloading cyclic stress history. The proposed approach is established based on the assumption that a linear relation can be established between the minimum and maximum stress tensors in high-cycle fatigue analysis and is thus only dependent on the maximum stress states. A set of examples including a notched specimen and a metallic bolted joint with pre-tension are simulated to demonstrate the simplified approach.