A fracture plane approach in multiaxial high-cycle fatigue of metals

The high-cycle fatigue behaviour of metals under multiaxial loading is exam ined. By employing the weight function method, the authors propose to corre late the fatigue fracture plane orientation with the averaged principal str ess directions. The results derived by applying such an approach are compar ed with the experimental data collected from the relevant literature, conce rning different types of metals under in-phase or out-of-phase sinusoidal b iaxial normal and shear stress states. Theoretical results determined by Mc Diarmid are also reported.