An approach to interpreting metastable austenitic material sensors for fatigue analysis

The transformation of metastable austenite to martensite under mechanical loading can be harnessed to create a material sensor which records a measure of the load history without the need for electrical energy and can be read out at arbitrary intervals via eddy current probing, thus leading to an ultra-low-power sensing solution. This paper presents possibilities of processing this load amplitude-dependent evolution of martensite content loading for component fatigue analysis. The general method is based on using a theoretical material model typically used in finite element analyses which includes hardening plasticity and phase transformation to precompute tables of stress amplitude or cumulative damage corresponding to different sensor readings which can be stored on a low power processing system onboard the component for energy-efficient lookup. At nominal single amplitude loading, the sensor can be used as a load cycle counter for known loads or as an overload detection device upon divergent martensite content rise. Interpretation of block program loading is less practical due to resolution issues. Under random loading, sequence effects get averaged out; interpretation is easiest with narrow load spectra, but information can be gained from very wide spectra as well. Multiple sensors at different locations can aid interpretation. Uncertainty due to necessary assumptions and untreated influences of temperature and loading rate is discussed.

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