Quantitative review of probabilistic approaches to fatigue design in the medium cycle fatigue regime

To quantify the fatigue behaviour of materials, a Wöhler diagram is required. The state of the art shows that, over the years, numerous approaches suitable for determining Wöhler curves have been devised and validated through large fatigue data sets. The variation in experimental fatigue data elicits the use of statistics for analysis and design purposes. By focusing on the medium-cycle fatigue regime (i.e., failures in the range 10³÷10⁷ cycles to failure), this paper reviews relevant statistical approaches, particularly the methods suggested by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) as well as the International Institute of Welding (IIW) and the so-called Linear Regression Method (LRM). Their responses were assessed on virtual data sets tailored to satisfy specific statistical requirements as well as experimental fatigue data sets from the literature. While the scatter bands at two times or less of the spread are similar for all approaches, the ASTM approach is seen to be the most conservative.