ABSTRACT
Bridges, crane constructions and automotive vehicles are subjected to variable loads and are often realised as truss constructions made of hollow sections. For Designing against fatigue failure normally entails the use of damage accumulation procedures according to the Palmgren-Miner-Rule, which is the industry-standard stipulated proceeding given in various design guides and recommendations. In these guidelines, damage sums between D = 0.5 and D = 1.0 are given. Different test results reveal that these damage sums partly are too conservative and can lead to uneconomic structures. To investigate the influence of variable amplitude loadings according to the damage sums and overload effects, a large number of tests was performed at the University of Applied Sciences Munich. For the tests, specimens were loaded with different load spectra with blocked and random load sequences. Within this paper the test series and the test results are presented.
