Discussion. On the Fatigue and Consequent Fracture of Metals.

An analytical relation between the Weibull and Basquin laws for smooth and notched specimens and application to constant amplitude fatigue

“…In 1843 Rankine [2] and York [3], [4] focused their attention on railway axles thanks to the establishment of the Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate instituted due to the increasing number of accidents, amongst which the so-called Versailles disaster where almost 60 people lost their lives due to the failure of the axle tree of the first engine on the 5 th October 1842. Anyway, the term fatigue was coined only in 1854 by the Englishman Braithwite [5], who discussed the fatigue failures of multiple components as water pumps, brewery equipment and, of course, railway axles. Many other English and German studies on the deterioration of railway axles were made in those years [6], [7] [8], [9], but the work of Wöhler, Royal "Obermaschinenmeister" of the "Niederschlesisch-Mährische" Railways in Frankfurt an der Oder, was the milestone paving the way for the modern conception of fatigue testing and interpretation of results.…”