Effect of the porosity on the fatigue strength of metals

In the present paper a procedure for fatigue strength assessment of metals containing solidification defects is employed to analyse the fatigue behaviour of a ductile cast iron (DCI) characterised by a relevant micro-shrinkage porosity. The procedure implements: (i) a statistical method deriving from extreme value theory, (ii) the \(\sqrt{area} \) -parameter model, and (iii) the multiaxial critical plane-based criterion by Carpinteri at al. According to the above statistical mthod, both the distribution of defects and the return period are determined. More precisely, the return period is computed by also exploiting a relationship here proposed to optimise the accuracy of the procedure in terms of fatigue strength estimation. The great ptential of the present procedure is that the defect content analysis (performed by means of a statistical method deriving from extreme value theory) can be easily performed using machine learning techniques.