ANSYS - Fatigue Analysis

This tip will use the Tensile Bar tutorial to demonstrate fatigue analysis in Mechanical. It is recommended to become familiar with the tensile bar tutorial before you proceed. Please download the workbench model here.

Procedure

The provided workbench file already has the solution for the problem. We will create another material and assign Alternating Stress Mean Stress and re-run the simulation. Restore the downloaded archive and double click on Engineering Data. In Engineering Data, click on the blank box and enter Al 6061-T6 to create a new material.

Once the new material is created, expand Life from the toolbox and double click on Alternating Stress Mean Stress.

Change the Interpolation to Semi-Log.

Enter 0 for the Mean Stress and the following data for cycles and alternating stress for aluminum.

From the toolbox, double click on Isotropic Elasticity.

Enter 1e7 psi for Young's Modulus and 0.3 for Poisson's Ratio. You can change the units from the Units tab on the top tool bar.