A Fatigue Life Experiment for Aerospace Engineering Undergraduates

The importance of fatigue in aerospace structural design suggests the need for this topic to be addressed as part of aerospace engineering undergraduate curricula. This paper describes a sequence of laboratory experiments for upper level aerospace engineering students that emphasizes stress concentrations and their role in quasistatic and fatigue loading. The fatigue experiment is conducted with a servohydraulic testing machine using simple specimens. Results of the experiment generated over several years of implementation are presented. A survey of students taken before and after completing the course shows that graduates of the course have a significantly improved understanding of stress concentration effects and their influence on the stress field. These students also have a significantly increased awareness of the importance of fatigue in engineering practice.