Comparison of analysis methods of data from thermographic measurements of Al 2024 fatigue limit for R=0.1

Abstract

The traditional methods for fatigue characterization of metallic materials are expensive and extremely time consuming. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the Thermographic Method (TM), based on thermographic analysis, is applied to estimate the fatigue limit of Al 2024. The temperature increase due to localized microplasticity is considered as the fatigue damage indicator. An experimental program is carried out to assess the fatigue limit both as resulting from the S–N field and, directly, from thermographic measurement. For the latter, three different methods are applied for the estimation of the AL 2024 fatigue limit and the out-coming results discussed. The values of fatigue limit predicted from the thermographic method according to the three methods are in good agreement to that derived from the traditional S-N procedure.