Fatigue Tests
:
COMPOSITION AND PROPERTIES OF STEEL
:
The Working Of Steel
It has been known for fifty years that a beam or rod would fail
at a relatively low stress if only repeated often enough. It has
been found, however, that each material possesses a limiting stress,
or endurance limit, within which it is safe, no matter how often
the loading occurs. That limiting stress for all steels so far
investigated causes fracture below 10 million reversals. In other
words, a steel which will not
reak before 10,000,000 reversals
can confidently be expected to endure 100,000,000, and doubtless
into the billions.
About the only way to test one piece such a large number of times
is to fashion it into a beam, load it, and then turn the beam in
its supports. Thus the stress in the outer fibers of the bar varies
from a maximum stretch through zero to a maximum compression, and
back again. A simple machine of this sort is shown in Fig. 10,
where B and E are bearings, A the test piece, turned slightly
down in the center, C and D ball bearings supporting a load
W. K is a pulley for driving the machine and N is a counter.