Fatigue life estimation of stranded copper conductors using the method based on the fatigue damage evolution model.

To consider the effects of plastic damage caused by compaction procedure on the tensile fatigue life of stranded copper conductors, the fatigue life estimation method based on the fatigue damage evolution model was applied to estimate the tensile fatigue life of stranded copper conductors with two different compaction degrees. The macroscopic and mesoscopic elastic-plastic constitutive models of TU2 oxygen-free copper material based on mixed hardening theory and two-scale theory were constructed and the user defined material subroutines (UMAT) for these two models were programmed. The estimation results were compared with fatigue test results and verified the good applicability and accuracy of the applied method on the tensile fatigue life estimation of stranded copper conductors. The effects of the plastic damage caused by the compaction procedure on the tensile fatigue life of stranded copper conductors were obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]