Fatigue — determination of a more realistic usage factor

The ability to use a suitable counting method for determining the stress range spectrum in elastic and simplified elastic-plastic fatigue analyses is of crucial importance for enabling determination of a realistic usage factor. Determination of elastic-plastic strain range using the K factor from fictitious elastically calculated loads is also important in the event of elastic behaviour being exceeded. This paper thus examines both points in detail. A fatigue module with additional options, which functions on this basis is presented. The much more realistic determination of usage factor presented here offers various economic benefits depending on the application.