材料期刊网

Lifetime and remnant life of engineering materials at high temperature has been analyzed based on a resistance degradation model. It can be demonstrated that the lifetime includes two time processes: resistance degradation process before crack initiation and crack growth process after the crack initiation. Traditional lifetime prediction, via the crack growth model, was found to involve the paradox that the lifetime is in proportion to the initial crack size. Whereas, experiments of static fatigue using glass sheet specimens did not confirm this proportional relationship. For a smooth sample, fracture resistance depends on the strength of the material, so a strength degradation model was used to estimate the lifetime zone between an upper and lower bound. It is defined that the material fails when the residual strength decline to the working stress or deformation reaches a designed limit. It is concluded that the quantity of lifetime mainly depends on the rate of resistance degradation for a brittle component under applied load. Thus, lifetime prediction is simulated as a simple relationship between distance, rate and time, in which the distance is known, the rate can be obtained from experiments and then the lifetime can be calculated.