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Abstract Most experimental studies on fatigue of structural materials are usually limited by conventional testing to lifetimes of 107 cycles or less. However, during the last decade, several unexpected failures have been recorded even for structural components made of ferrous metals, which were assumed to have a distinct fatigue limit. Consequently, there has been a growing interest especially in the recent years in studying ultra-high cycle fatigue up to 1010 cycles in various materials. This paper reviews the state of the art and presents some fundamental aspects on ultra-high cycle fatigue in structural metals. The main contents covered by the paper included: Development of accelerated fatigue testing method and its application, crack initiation and growth mechanisms of internal fracture due to very high cycle fatigue, S-N diagram, fatigue limit and life prediction, frequency and environmental effects, and surface treatments, etc. Future research topics have also been identified.
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Received: 02 December 2010
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2010, Vol. 31 
