Abstract
Nearly 90% of service failures of metallic components and structures are caused by fatigue. The improvement of fatigue strength could help to reduce the risk of fatigue failure to engineering structures and human lives, and contribute to lightweight design, thereby enhancing the efficiency of resource use. Despite numerous attempts, scientists and engineers have struggled to make significant improvements in this area. Here we propose four principles for anti-fatigue design of metals, including: 1) high elastic modulus; 2) fine, uniform and stable microstructure; 3) smallest possible inclusion or defects size and 4) optimal tensile properties. Guided by the four principles above, we successfully achieved the highest fatigue strength (2017 MPa) and specific fatigue strength (258 MPa/(g/cm3)) to date using cold-drawn pearlitic steel with oriented nano-scale lamellar microstructure and extremely small inclusions. Consequently, the extremely high fatigue strength achieved by these principles could provide significant guidance for anti-fatigue design of all metallic materials in the future.
Citation
Recommended citation: Z.K. Xu, X.L. Su, P. Zhang, et al., How high can the fatigue strength of metals be achieved?, Natl. Sci. Rev. 12 (2025) nwaf332.