Isothermal and thermo-mechanical fatigue life modelling of components and structures at elevated temperature

Abstract Elevated temperature fatigue-life projects, funded by leading automotive manufacturers and component suppliers, are being carried out at nCode International Limited. These projects aim to develop an integrated durability solution for engineering components at elevated temperature, and involve material characterisation, software development of numerical damage models, software validation and verification. It is expected that the procedure developed can eventually allow industry to use and compare various models to predict the life of components under high temperature conditions and to achieve “right-first-time” design. The integrated durability procedure is explained in this paper, followed by an overview of some damage models at elevated temperature, including creep, fatigue and creep-fatigue interaction models. Some details of software development and material testing are also described.