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A comparison of two methods of analysing staircase fatigue test data
Author(s) -
Grove Daniel,
Campean Felician
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
quality and reliability engineering international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1099-1638
pISSN - 0748-8017
DOI - 10.1002/qre.899
Subject(s) - range (aeronautics) , regression analysis , mathematics , standard deviation , domain (mathematical analysis) , regression , distribution (mathematics) , fatigue limit , statistics , test data , structural engineering , computer science , engineering , mathematical analysis , programming language , aerospace engineering
Abstract When the fatigue strength of components or material is tested by the staircase or up‐and‐down method, the data can be analysed in either the fatigue strength domain, which is the most popular approach, or the life domain, based on life regression models. In this paper we exploit a simple relationship between families of models in the two domains to obtain an estimate of the distribution of fatigue strength directly from a fitted life regression model. We use simulation to compare the two approaches, concluding that for estimating important features of the fatigue strength distribution the method of maximum likelihood is more effective if it is applied in the life domain. In particular, it is more robust to the choice of x h , the step height of the staircase, provided x h is in the range σ X –2σ X , where σ X is the standard deviation of the log‐strengths. Most of our results are insensitive to the value of the initial stress amplitude. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.