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The aim of this paper is to characterise the fatigue reliability for various random strain loads under extreme value distribution while considering the cycle sequence effect condition in fatigue life prediction. The established strain–life models, i.e., Morrow and Smith–Watson–Topper, considered a mean stress effect and strain amplitude; nevertheless, it excluded the load sequence effect, which involves the fatigue crack closure that is subjected to overload or underload. A FESEM-EDX analysis is conducted to characterise the failure features that occurred on the leaf spring. A finite element is simulated to determine the critical region in order to obtain the strain load behaviour. In addition, the strain signal is captured experimentally at 500 Hz for 100 s under operating conditions for three different road loads based on the critical location obtained from the finite element analysis. The fatigue life correlation shows that the Pearson correlation coefficients are greater than 0.9, which indicates the effective strain damage model is linearly correlated with the strain–life models. The fatigue life data are modelled using extreme value distribution by considering the random strain loads as extreme data. The reliability rate for the fatigue life is reported to be more than 0.59 within the hazard rate range of 9.6 × 10−8 to 1.2 × 10−7 based on the mean cycle to the failure point. Hence, the effective strain damage model is proposed for a fatigue reliability assessment under extreme conditions with higher reliability and provides fatigue life prediction when subjected to cycle sequence effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study characterized the properties of random strain loading data for using power spectral density (PSD) in frequency domain of a heavy vehicle leaf spring. This is due to missing data caused by the sensitivity of the strain gauges in capturing strain signal. Strain signal was captured from a leaf spring component for 100 s at a sampling rate of 200 Hz using strain gauge. Fatigue life prediction was computed using strain-life models: Coffin-Manson, Morrow and Smith-Watson-Topper (SWT). The fatigue strain data showed that downhill data produces the lowest fatigue life prediction at 3.42 × 102 cycles/block with high energy of 3.6 × 104μɛ2.Hz-1; then it was followed by curve and highway data. This was supported by the root-mean-square (RMS) value at 324.24 μɛ as it is directly related towards the PSD based on the energy contained for each captured signal. The correlation of fatigue life and strain amplitude was calculated to identify the distribution of fatigue strain data of leaf spring. Thus, the fatigue strain loading data can be characterized properly based on the energy content in PSD, the statistical parameter in the form of RMS value and the correlation with strain amplitude for random strain loading of leaf spring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]