Concepts for estimating the fatigue strength of sintered steel components

The fatigue notch effect can be estimated using fracture mechanics-based support factors. Stress intensity factors for cracks in notches must therefore be calculated. There is a problem of transferability when 2D reference geometries are used for this. This can be avoided when modelling 3D cracks in the notch of the actual part to be assessed. This is more laborious, but leads to better results, which will be shown in this presentation. The questions of aspect ratio and to point on the crack front, where stresses are evaluated, will be discussed. The approach is validated using a broad database of different sintered steels. The statistical evaluation shows an almost exact prediction of the mean value with a relatively small scatter.