Fatigue strength and surface quality of eutectoid steel wires

In this paper a model for the fatigue strength prediction of rope wires is presented and discussed. Within this method the fatigue process of wires is described in terms of propagation of the surface defects caused by cold drawing. In particular, the fatigue limit is related to the population of extreme defects and to the material properties expressed by cyclic yield strength and by crack propagation thresholds. The model has been successfully applied for the prediction of fatigue strength of two different eutectoid steel wires, one of them being zinc coated, used in ropeway applications. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail rights reserved.