Energy as a damage factor in fatigue: Plenary lecture at the international conference low cycle fatigue 6

Computer-aided fatigue design supposes many ingredients among which a damage indicator is considered. Since many years, energy based approaches have been considered as good candidates and many propositions have been done. However, as energy can be split in several parts which conduct to the definition of elastic, plastic, dissipated or stored energies, a discussion on the role of each of them is necessary. This is the objective of this paper in order to synthesize the different propositions which have been made during the last decades.