The relationship between strain fatigue life and evolution of meso-deformation inhomogeneity was studied, through the cyclic process of numerical simulation of crystal plasticity compared with the fatigue test of steel hot-rolled ribbed-steel bar 400 (HRB400). The statistical characterization parameters at grain level, including the standard deviation of the dot product of longitudinal stress and strain, the product of the macro stress and the standard deviation of the longitudinal strain, and the product of the macro stress ratio and the standard deviation of the longitudinal strain, were proposed and respectively applied to measure the meso-deformation inhomogeneity of materials. These parameters take the effect of peak stress into account, distinct from the pure strain statistical parameters. The numerical results demonstrate that the low-cycle fatigue life curves of materials are predictable using the new parameters as FIPs (fatigue indicator parameters), and the predictions are more rational than by utilizing the FIPs without considering the peak stress effect.
Keywords: BCC; crystal plasticity; fatigue indicator parameter; fatigue life prediction; polycrystalline RVE; strain inhomogeneity.