Modeling Metallic Fatigue Data Using the Birnbaum–Saunders Distribution

Abstract

This work employs the Birnbaum–Saunders distribution to model the fatigue-life of metallic materials under cyclic loading and compares it with the normal distribution. Fatigue-limit models are fitted to three datasets of unnotched specimens of 75S-T6 aluminum alloys and carbon laminate with different loading types. A new equivalent stress definition that accounts for the effect of the experiment type is proposed. The results show that the Birnbaum–Saunders distribution consistently outperforms the normal distribution in fitting the fatigue data and provides more accurate predictions of fatigue-life and survival probability.