The influence of prior low‐cycle fatigue (LCF) on the residual fatigue life was investigated experimentally. A Ni‐based alloy was cyclically loaded under stress‐controlled low‐high (LH) block loading. In the first loading step, low‐amplitude loading was performed with the stress amplitude of 283.5MPa at 710°C. Different cycles of preloading were performed, varying from 100 to 10 000. Subsequently, high‐amplitude fatigue loading was carried out with the stress amplitude of 315MPa at 800°C. Experimental results show that the previous loading was beneficial to the residual fatigue life when the consumed life fraction is below 0.2 and detrimental when the consumed life fraction is larger than 0.2. A novel nonlinear fatigue damage accumulation model was proposed to estimate the residual LCF life under LH loading path considering the effects of load sequence and preloading cycles. The proposed model provided a better life prediction than some existing models, such as Kwofie‐Rahbar model, Miner' rule, Peng model, and Ye‐Wang model. Lastly, this model was further validated using various materials under LH and high‐low block loadings.