Residual stress relief effect in gradient structural steel and remaining life evaluation under stochastic fatigue loads

The surface induction-hardened S38C medium carbon steel shows a good balance of strength and toughness, but complicates the evaluation of fatigue resistance, mainly because of gradient residual stress (RS) and grains. An integrated fatigue resistance assessment (AIFA) framework was proposed to consider the residual stress relief under stochastic loads. To this end, quasi-in situ neutron diffraction and Bragg-edge imaging were combined to probe the evolution of residual stress during crack propagation. Firstly, a rigid-flexible coupled vehicle dynamics model was adopted to obtain the time-domain variable amplitude loading spectrum. Then, Fortran subroutines were developed to assign these data into full-scale S38C axle model, and the remaining life was predicted using the damage tolerance approach. The results demonstrate that crack propagation would accelerate when residual stress is considered in the case of the crack depth exceeding 3.0 mm. It is, for the first time, found that 15 mm- and 5 mm-thickness fan-shaped specimens can retain the axial and hoop residual strain in terms of diffraction angle variation, respectively, for full-scale structural S38C steel axles. In the absence of RS, the remaining life of the axle decreases sharply from 624,800 to 51,300 km as the crack depth increases from 3.0 to 16 mm. Compared with the standard method under constant amplitude loading without residual stress relief, the present AIFA method provides the more accurate but conservative fatigue life prediction.