Stress Analysis and Design

for Cyclic Loading

P. Carter
Staff Consultant, A finite element implementation of rapid cycle analysis is described and demonstrated. It
Stress Engineering Services, Inc., forms part of a comprehensive framework for static structural analysis which consists of:
Mason, OH 45039 linear elastic analysis, limit load or nonlinear elastic analysis, and rapid cycle analysis.
e-mail: pcarter@ses-oh.com This approach allows for complex material and loading behavior, but is computationally
Mem. ASME more efficient and easier to perform than full inelastic analysis. It indicates more complex
behavior than can be inferred from linear elastic analysis. The objective of this paper is
to calculate shakedown, reverse plasticity, ratcheting, and the increase in strain rate as a
result of cyclic mechanical and thermal loading. Results are presented in the form of
interaction diagrams, similar to the ODonnell-Porowski plot in the ASME BPV Code,
which are effective design tools. S0094-99300001604-8

1 Introduction
Effective techniques for structural design and assessment rely
on a trade-off between rigor and economy. In terms of finite ele-
ment models, the most economic option usually consists of linear
elastic material models, minimal mesh refinement, small strains,
and no nonlinearities because of large displacements, contact, etc.
The effectiveness of the model typically relies on:
The realism or conservatism of the assumptions.
The existence of design codes or rules which allow results of
linear elastic analysis to be interpreted for more complex real
situations.
The ability of the analyst to interpret linear elastic analyses
for realistic materials and structural details, for example,
notches.
This paper presents a framework for structural analysis which is
more rigorous than elastic analysis, but does not sacrifice practi-
cality or efficiency. The focus is on inelastic creep and plasticity
ductile materials, subject to quasi-static cyclic mechanical and
thermal loading.
It is proposed that three kinds of analysis are generally neces-
sary to characterize such structural problems:
1 Linear elastic analysisthis gives a preliminary indication of
structural behavior.
2 Limit load analysis, or non-linear elastic stress analysis
these analyses give similar information in the case of highly non-
linear materials. Which technique is used may depend on their
relative computational complexity. Elastic-plastic and nonlinear
elastic analysis is now hardly more complex than linear elastic
analysis in most commercial finite element codes. The benefit of
these analyses is that effects of stress redistribution caused by
plasticity and creep are clarified. Without this information, stress
classification schemes are necessary.
3 Rapid cycle analysis for load cycles. Stress classification
schemes and design rules are generally less adequate for cyclic
and thermal loading than for steady loading. For such problems,
reliance on design codes rules may not be a satisfactory option for
designers, particularly when new or different classes of problems
are faced, and when accurate information is required on factors of
safety, that is the margin between design and failure. For these
The objective of this paper is to show how rapid cycle analysis
generates this information for a structure. The methodology and
solution algorithm are given in Sections 2, 3, and 4. Examples of
rapid cycle analysis and the generation of interaction diagrams to
characterize a structure under cyclic loading are given in Section
5.
2 Methodology
There are three building blocks that have to fit together to make
a useful design tool for cyclic loading. These are:
1 Finite element rapid cycle analysis.
2 Use of n-power creep law and the limit as 1/n tends to zero.
3 Generation of interaction diagrams.
These will be discussed briefly in the next sections.
3 Rapid Cycle Solution Definition
The definition of the rapid cycle concept was due to Ponter 1.
In its simplest form the theory is based on an elastic, n-power
creep material. Strain is the sum of elastic, thermal, and creep
inelastic components
e t c
Stress is related to elastic strain via the stiffness E
E e
Inelastic strain rate is proportional to Mises or effective stress to
the power n
c / tk n1 /
Thermal strain is proportional to temperature minus a reference
temperature.
t TT 0
Consider a structure with volume V and surface S, subject to
cyclic mechanical loads P(t) over S, and cyclic thermal strains
t (t) over V. P(t) and t (t) have the same period T.
Let the elastic solution for loading P(t) and t (t) be a stress
history e (t). The rapid cycle solution is defined by the constant
residual stress field rc , such that

problems, structural assessment requires determination of: shake- T
down, reverse plasticity or ratcheting behavior in the absence of c k n1 / : e t rc dt
shakedown, and creep strain accumulation. 0

can be derived from a displacement field u. This means that the

Contributed by the Pressure Vessels and Piping Division for publication in the
JOURNAL OF PRESSURE VESSEL TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received by the PVP
Division, July 26, 1999; revised manuscript received July 6, 2000. Associate Tech-
nical Editor: C. Jaske.
creep strain c calculated from the elastic solution plus a con-
stant residual stress field, must be kinematically admissible. There
are a number of theorems 13 which give more detail on the

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 rapid cycle solution, particularly its bounding properties. Of im-
portance is that the rapid cycle solution satisfies a minimum prin-
ciple. Define

0 V
k n1 e t dV dt

Then, the rapid cycle solution satisfies

rc
The calculation of the rapid cycle solution uses an algorithm
which calculates a correction to and then calculates the magni-
tude of the correction so that the energy term is minimized.

4 Rapid Cycle Solution Algorithm

The steps in the algorithm are as follows:
i Define the load cycle in terms of a finite number of steps.
ii Calculate and store elastic stress distributions for these
load steps.
iii Initially, assume zero residual stress. Subsequently, use the
updated .
iv Calculate the creep strain c associated with the stress
history e (t) .
v Calculate residual stress associated with c .
vi Calculate the value of such that is mini-
mized.
vii Update .
viii Go to step iii and repeat until the solution converges.
The solution may be characterized by the compatible strain field
c , or by the residual stress field rc .
ix Calculate the cyclic effective stress CES, which is the
constant stress which would produce strain c in time T.
x Calculate the shakedown stress, which is the maximum
Mises or effective stress during the cycle e (t) rc .
This algorithm was developed and applied for third order axisym- Fig. 1 ASME III ratcheting and creep strain accumulation
metric elements. diagram

4.1 Effect of Creep Exponent n. The output of a rapid

cycle solution is the maximum elastic plus residual stress during
the cycle, and the cyclic effective stress, at each point in the body.
The maximum values of these quantities over the volume V char-
acterize the structure and loading, for the creep law used in the
analysis. The maximum stress over the volume and over the cycle
is an upper bound estimate of the shakedown stress. When differ-
ing values of the creep exponent n are used, it is found that the
maximum stress and creep effective stresses vary nearly linearly
with 1/n. As n gets larger, the maximum stress decreases and
provides a better estimate of the shakedown stress, that is, the
lowest value of the yield stress for which the structure would
shake down. As n gets larger, the creep effective stress typically
increases. For n1, CES is unaffected by the thermal stress, as
indicated in Fig. 2. Increasing material nonlinearity n accentu-
ates the effect of thermal cycles. This can be understood by con-
sidering the effect on strain accumulation of a uniaxial tensile
stress history consisting of followed by for equal times.
For n1, CES. In the limit of 1/n0, CES. The limit-
ing case therefore generates the shakedown stress and the upper
bound for the cyclic effective stress. In this paper, a finite value of
n10 will be used as a limiting case.
4.2 Interaction Diagrams. Figure 1 is a well-known inter-
action diagram, due to Bree 4 in its early form, developed by
ODonnell and Porowski 5, and now part of the ASME III NH
high temperature code 6. The regions of elastic, shakedown,
reverse plasticity and ratcheting behaviors are shown. The BODP
plot refers to the case of constant membrane stress and cyclic
through-wall bending in a uniform cylindrical shell. In the ASME
III NH code it is used as a general way of assessing cyclic thermal
and mechanical loading. There is clearly a need to generate such
an interaction diagram for any structure and cyclic loading.
The procedure followed to generate an interaction diagram for a
particular creep exponent is as follows:
i Perform mechanical and thermal elastic analyses to gener-
ate say 12 combinations of mechanical and thermal loading.
ii Normalize maximum elastic stresses for each combination
by these shakedown and cyclic effective stresses. This gives nor-
malized coordinates of shakedown and effective stresses.
iii Join coordinates to give contours.
iv Generate contours of cyclic effective creep stress.
The manipulations in steps iii and iv are readily performed
using a spreadsheet.
5 Applications
5.1 Thin Shell Subject to Pressure and Thermal
Cycling. Figures 2 and 3 are the results for the BODP problem
on a thin spherical shell, namely constant pressure and cyclic
through-wall thermal loading. At one extreme of the cycle,
stresses are due to pressure loading alone. At the other extreme,
stresses are due to pressure and a through thickness thermal gra-
dient. The procedure described in the foregoing produced a con-
verged solution which had stresses which varied by less than 1
percent from one step to the next. In these plots, the heaviest line
is the shakedown boundary, and the lighter lines are lines of con-

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 Fig. 2 Thin shell: pressure and cyclic thermal loading n 1
stant creep effective stress CES within the shakedown boundary.
Continuation of the CES lines outside the shakedown boundary is
with the lightest lines.
Figure 2 is the solution for the creep exponent n1, and Fig. 3
is for n10. The solution for n1 has creep strain accumulation
independent on thermal cycles, and the maximum stress in the
cycle is the primary stress plus the thermal stress amplitude.
The results in Figs. 2 and 3 are only strictly valid in the shake-
down region, since plastic strains are not calculated in the proce-
dure. In this region, residual stresses can be set up so that no
plasticity occurs in the rapid cycle, and so the creep analysis used
in this approach is valid. This is indicated by the heavier CES
contours within the shakedown boundary. The CES contour be-
ginning at the value 1 on the primary stress axis is therefore not
strictly meaningful if it goes outside the shakedown boundary. It
really defines the shape of the other CES contours within the
shakedown boundary. It does also, however, provide an indication
of the structural behavior if shakedown does not occur. If the CES
contour and the shakedown contour are similar, then it is likely
that ratcheting will occur if the structure fails to shakedown. If
they diverge, then ratcheting is less probable. This would have to
be confirmed using a full inelastic analysis.
Fig. 3 Thin shell: pressure and cyclic thermal loading n
10
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Fig. 4 Tubeplate: pressure and thermal cycling n 10
The shape of the shakedown surface is in reasonable agreement
with Fig. 1. Unlike the BODP plot, the thermal stress axis has a
finite intercept for the creep effective stress for the rapid cycle
solution; but in the limiting case of zero mechanical load, there
can be difficulties with round-off errors, and so the results here
need to be treated with caution. However, the numerical difficul-
ties probably reflect real physical instabilities, in the sense that a
net zero creep strain accumulation over the cycle depends on an
exactly balanced cycle, which is unlikely given the temperature
differences in the different parts of the cycle. The CES contours
generally predict higher creep strain accumulation rates than the
BODP plot.
In the elastic region of the BODP plot, thermal stresses have no
effect, whereas the rapid cycle solution shows an effect for all
thermal stresses. There are some possible explanations to be
noted. The BODP problem has creep strain occurring in one part
of the cycle only. The rapid cycle analysis has creep strain occur-
ring throughout the cycle. This combined with multiaxial effects
in the spherical shell probably accounts for the differences in the
shape of creep contours in the region of the knee, where the
horizontal and angled shakedown lines meet. The rapid cycle
analysis indicates that the ratcheting region might extend into the
region above the horizontal shakedown line.
5.2 Thick Plate Subject to Pressure and Thermal
Loading. Consider a circular plate subject to constant pressure
loading, and through-thickness cyclic thermal loading. The plate
has a thickness-diameter ratio of 1 to 10. Figure 4 is the interac-
tion diagram for this problem.
The primary stress intercept is 1.74 yield stress, showing the
strength associated with the built-in edge. The shape of the creep
contours suggests that if shakedown is not achieved, the structure
might ratchet, except possibly in the region where primary
stresses are less than 20 percent of yield. As before, the plots
distinguish between contours of creep effective stress inside and
outside the shakedown boundary.
5.3 Nozzles Subject to Cyclic Pressure Loading. Figure 5
shows the effect of adequate reinforcement on a nozzle. Three
geometries are represented. The plain spherical shell has D
200, T2. The unreinforced nozzle has a cylinder with d
100, t2. The reinforced nozzle has the amount of reinforce-
ment based on the area replacement rule.
The loading consists of cyclic pressure loading only, varying
from a zero mean pressure to constant loading. Figure 5 shows the
shakedown boundaries for the three cases. The advantage of rein-
NOVEMBER 2000, Vol. 122 429
 6 Conclusions
The technique of rapid cycle analysis has been demonstrated as
a tool to understand the cyclic behavior of structures. It can be
used to generate interaction diagrams giving the shakedown
boundary, and the contours of cyclic or effective creep stress
within the shakedown region. The results for n1, and for a high
value of n, say 10, provide the limits of reasonable material be-
havior. This provides a powerful design tool so that designers can
understand structural behavior and factors of safety over a range
of loading conditions.
Detailed comparisons with other techniques are beyond the
scope of this paper. The only available alternatives which give
similar information are, to the authors knowledge, full cyclic in-
elastic analysis using an elastic visco-plastic material, and the
ASME III NH rules. It is difficult to visualize the generation of
the interaction diagrams using full inelastic analysis, although
analysis of one combination of thermal and mechanical loads
would be feasible if time-consuming. The ASME rules do not
constitute a directly comparable technique, since they cannot be
truly general as the different interaction diagrams in this paper
show.

References
Fig. 5 Comparison of nozzle behaviors
forcing the nozzle is obvious, in that its strength and behavior
approach that of the plain shell. The unreinforced nozzle has only
60 percent of the strength of the plain shell.
The unreinforced nozzle shows a region close to the case of
zero minimum load where the behavior of the nozzle could be
limited by shakedown. The reinforced nozzle is more like the
plain shell.
1 Ponter, A. R. S., 1972, Deformation, Displacement and Work Bounds for
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Mech., 39, pp. 953963.
2 Ainsworth, R. A., 1977, Bounding Solutions for Creeping Structures Sub-
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6 ASME III Division I Subsection NH. Appendix T, 1998.

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