A thermodynamic model for material fatigue under cyclic loading

We propose a temperature dependent model for fatigue accumulation in an oscillating elastoplastic plate. The full system consists of the momentum and energy balance equations, and an evolution equation for the fatigue rate. The main modeling hypothesis is that the fatigue rate is proportional to the dissipation rate. In nontrivial cases, the process develops a singularity (material failure) in finite time. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.