Stiffness changes in a dog bone model due to longitudinal and cross-sectional microdamage

The effects of microdamage in the longitudinal and cross-sectional directions due to fatigue loading in a dog bone model under four-point bending loading was investigated. A global damage parameter (stiffness loss) was used to estimate the residual stiffness. Finite element simulation results show that the longitudinal damage is more severe than the cross-sectional damage for the four-point bending loading considered.