An introduction to fatigue testing and design

Fatigue failure occurs when an structure is subjected to cyclic loading, like wind, waves or traffic.
Even if the load is below the yield stress of the material, the constant loading and unloading of the structure can make cracks to open and  propagate until failure is reached.

These cracks usually appear at points of stress concentration, like welds, holes and sharp edges.


Fatigue testing allows us to characterized the resistance of materials under differents loads amplitudes and number of cycles.

An introduction to fatigue testing, S-N diagrams and fatigue design is shown the next videos: