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Abstract. Strain controlled tests were performed on a high strength steel to investigate the influence of tension mean stress to the crack initiation process at the very high cycle fatigue regime. It is supposed that the variation of stress the state in the vicinity of a non-metallic inclusion results in a change to the energy transferred to the surrounding metallic matrix. To prove this, incremental step tests on cylindrical specimen were realized in which the tension mean stress was stepwise increased. It could be verified that the hysteresis area, which is a criterion of the work transferred to the specimen, decreases with increasing tension mean stress. The test results provide a reasonable physical model to estimate the influence of tension mean stress to the crack initiation process in the very high cycle fatigue regime.