On the use of thermographic method to measure fatigue limits

Abstract Traditional fatigue limit measurements are expensive and time consuming, requiring a large number of specimens and a long time to be completed. An alternative approach is used in this work to obtain the fatigue limit of a cold drawn steel, in a rotating bending machine, by monitoring temperature variations induced by different load range levels in just a few specimens. Comparisons with Dixon’s traditional up-and-down method confirm that this thermographic approach is indeed a much more efficient, faster, and cheaper method to obtain fatigue limits.