B-FADE: Bayesian-fatigue model estimator in Python and its application to the probabilistic estimation of El Haddad curves.

Abstract

The accurate calibration of semi-empirical fatigue models against experimental evidence is a critical step for achieving reliable predictions. Amongst many semi-empirical fatigue models, El Haddad's (EH) curve is widely exploited to characterise the fatigue endurance limit of defect-laden and cracked metallic alloys. A few deterministic computational models exist in this respect, however, they lack a robust probabilistic perspective and their implementation code is not publicly accessible. The authors of the present work have recently exploited Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) to robustly and probabilistically estimate EH's curves, even in case of data scarcity or incomplete datasets, combining experimental evidence and prior knowledge taken from literature. Whilst the implementation scheme was published, the associated code was not made available. Hereby, the authors present B-FADE, a flexible open-source Python package, aimed at releasing the implementation of the MAP approach with improvements, as well as several pre- and post-processing utilities to facilitate its deployment. The package is conferred with a sufficient level of abstraction, thus turning out to be easily extensible to future implementation of other relevant fatigue models.