Beanspruchungsgeschichte

Beanspruchungsgeschichte, often translated as load history, is the record of all external loads that a component or structure experiences over its service life. It encompasses the magnitude, direction, duration, sequence, and frequency of stresses and strains, including rests, ramp rates, and transient overloads. The concept is central to fatigue and damage-tolerance analysis because damage accumulation depends on the entire loading sequence, not just peak values.

In practice, load histories can be obtained from field measurements, mission or usage profiles, or numerical simulations. Irregular time histories are commonly converted into a form suitable for fatigue analysis using methods such as rainflow counting, which decomposes complex loading into a spectrum of stress or strain ranges with associated cycle counts. Damage is then evaluated with accumulation rules like Miner’s rule, possibly adjusted for mean-stress effects or multiaxial states. More advanced approaches may use energy-based criteria or fracture-mechanics models for specific materials and applications.

Applications of beanspruchungsgeschichte include aerospace, automotive, civil engineering, offshore structures, and wind-energy components, where predicting remaining life and guiding design require understanding variable-amplitude loading and its sequence. The quality of analysis depends on the fidelity of the load history, the material and damage models, and the treatment of interactions between different loading modes and environmental factors.

Related concepts include fatigue, rainflow counting, and fatigue damage accumulation rules such as Miner’s rule.