A Global Approach for the Fatigue of Shape Memory Alloys

This review paper, related to previous works of the authors, documents a global approach for structural fatigue of shape memory alloys. It includes two steps. First, a cyclic finite-strain thermomechanically coupled constitutive model is developed in order to compute the asymptotic thermomechanical state. Second, fatigue behavior of SMAs is comprehensively investigated: (i) for low cycle fatigue, strain, and stress-controlled fatigue tests are carried out, the effect of the frequency on low cycle fatigue of SMAs is studied and a strain energy-based low-cycle fatigue criterion is proposed; (ii) for high-cycle fatigue, a shakedown-based high-cycle fatigue criterion is developed to predict whether an SMA structure submitted to high cycle loading would undergo fatigue or not.