Fatigue strength of S355JC steel under harmonic and random bending torsion loading by a tri-axis shaker: Preliminary experimental results

A new testing system for applying coupled/uncoupled bendingtorsion loading in vibratory tests by a tri-axis shaker has been recently developed at the Department of Engineering of University of Ferrara. The system is composed of a cylindrical specimen with eccentric tip masses, excited by horizontal and/or vertical base accelerations. A special design of the gripping system for specimen constraint allows torsional and bending deformations to be produced and controlled independently, when vertical and horizontal base accelerations are applied simultaneously by the shaker. The values of accelerations and strains in the tested specimens can be monitored continuously. This paper presents a first set of experimental results under harmonic bending and torsion, and under narrow-band combined random loading. Estimations from two frequency-domain approaches are also discussed.