Fatigue Life Analysis of Aluminum Alloy Notched Specimens under Non-Gaussian Excitation based on Fatigue Damage Spectrum

Abstract

In this study, a non-Gaussian excitation acceleration method is proposed, using aluminum alloy notched specimens as a research object and measured acceleration signal of a certain airborne bracket, during aircraft flight as input excitations, based on the fatigue damage spectrum (FDS) theory. The kurtosis and skewness of the input signal are calculated and the non-Gaussian characteristics and amplitude distribution are evaluated. Five task segments obey a non-Gaussian distribution, while one task segment obeys a Gaussian distribution. The fatigue damage spectrum calculation method of non-Gaussian excitation is derived. The appropriate FDS calculation method is selected for each task segment and the acceleration parameters are set to construct the acceleration power spectral density, which is equivalent to the pseudo-acceleration damage. A finite-element model is established, the notch stress concentration factor of the specimen is calculated, the large mass point method is used to simulate the shaking table excitation, and a random vibration analysis is carried out to calculate the accelerated fatigue life. The simulation results show that the relative error between the original cumulative damage and test original fatigue life is 15.7%. The shaking table test results show that the relative error of fatigue life before and after acceleration is less than 16.95%, and the relative error of test and simulation is 24.27%. The failure time of the specimen is accelerated from approximately 12 h to 1 h, the acceleration ratio reaches 12, and the average acceleration ideal factor is 1.125, which verifies the effectiveness of the acceleration method. It provides a reference for the compilation of the load spectrum and vibration endurance acceleration test of other airborne aircraft equipment.