Multiaxis Rainflow Fatigue Methods for Nonstationary Vibration

Mechanical structures and components may be subjected to cyclical loading conditions, including sine and random vibration. Such systems must be designed and tested accordingly. Rainflow cycle counting is the standard method for reducing a stress time history to a table of amplitude-cycle pairings prior to the Palmgren-Miner cumulative damage calculation. The damage calculation is straightforward for sinusoidal stress but very complicated for random stress, particularly for nonstationary vibration. This paper evaluates candidate methods and makes a recommendation for further study of a hybrid technique.