A unified approach based on temporal homogenisation and cycle jump for thermo-mechanical combined cycle fatigue

Abstract : Engineering components in the aviation, automobile and locomotive sectors are often subjected to thermo-mechanical fatigue of the CCF (combined cycle fatigue) type. The fatigue behaviour for such cases can be quantified using classical continuum damage framework. The problem in such case is the immense numerical cost for a cycle-by-cycle simulation, hence a unified numerical strategy is proposed that can avoid such tedious computations for structures under CCF. Such a framework is based on temporal homogenisation and cycle jump technique that avoids cycle-by-cycle simulation for both the fast and slow cycles, providing an appreciable CPU gain with acceptable accuracy.