1 Scope

1.1 General

This British Standard gives methods for assessing the fatigue life of parts of steel products that are subject to repeated fluctuations of stress. It is applicable to all areas of industrial application that are not covered by other British Standards containing fatigue assessment rules.

NOTE Some British Standards have specific product acceptance tests for fatigue life, but do not have assessment rules. In such cases the guidance in this British Standard might be applicable for product development purposes.

1.2 Applications not covered

This British Standard is not applicable to the following application areas;

a) lighting columns (see BS EN 40);
b) concrete building and civil engineering structures (see BS EN 1992);
c) steel building and civil engineering structures [see BS EN 1993 (all parts)];
d) composite steel and concrete building and civil engineering structures [see BS EN 1994 (all parts)];
e) unfired pressure vessels (see BS EN 13445); and
f) fixed offshore structures (see BS EN ISO 19902).

1.3 Materials

This British Standard covers:

a) wrought steel material products;
b) welds in fully machined areas of steel casting;
c) ferritic alloy and low alloy steels;
d) austenitic and duplex stainless steels;
e) unprotected weathering steels; and
f) threaded fasteners.

It is applicable to yield strengths in the range 200 N/mm² to 960 N/mm² and ultimate tensile strengths in the range 360 to 1 200 N/mm² for material thicknesses 3 mm and greater.

This British Standard is not applicable to the following:

1) proprietary fasteners;
2) steel castings;
3) cold drawn products;
4) wire ropes; and
5) steel for reinforcement in concrete.

1.4 Manufacturing processes

This British Standard is applicable to machined products with the following exceptions:

a) rough sawn surfaces;
b) surfaces requiring high quality surface finish (e.g. lapping, polishing, honing, fine grinding); and
c) machined details with sharp corners (e.g. key ways, un-radiused shoulders).

The following manufacturing processes are also covered:

1) cold formed wrought products;
2) weld toe improvement methods;
3) arc welded joints, with the exclusion of joints between rectangular and square hollow sections;
4) in-line butt welds made by power beam or friction welding;
5) tensioned and un-tensioned bolted joints and hot-driven riveted lap joints loaded in shear; and
6) thermal cutting.

This British Standard is not applicable to the following manufacturing processes:

i) resistance welding processes and brazing;
ii) contact joints under pressure where fretting occurs;
iii) adhesively bonded joints;
iv) shearing and punching; and
v) surface hardening.

1.5 Environment

The fatigue design data in this British Standard are applicable to internal and external air environments. They are applicable to structural steel products exposed to sea water.

They are not applicable to unprotected stainless or weathering steel products in sea water or aggressive corroding environments (e.g. chloride, sulphide, strong acid or alkali).

The data are applicable to products operating at temperatures below the creep range of the steel.

This British Standard is not applicable to products operating in the creep regime.

BS 7608:2014+A1:2015

Guide to fatigue design and assessment of steel products

Current

Published:

31 Mar 2014