Thermo-mechanical fatigue: the route to standardization

Abstract Thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) testing plays an increasingly important role in the design of various safety critical components which are exposed to thermal and mechanical loads. At present, however, a standard for TMF testing does not exist, causing a lack of comparability of TMF data. In view of this situation, the European Commission is funding a project, entitled Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue: The Route to Standardization (TMF-Standard). The objectives of the TMF-Standard project are to provide, at the European level, the technical basis that will enable to define in a comprehensive way all test-related aspects of a standard for strain-controlled TMF, to draft the findings in the form of a Code-of-Practice for TMF testing, to co-ordinate the European input into the ISO Working Group on TMF, and to disseminate the Code-of-Practice among all interested parties with a view to promoting the implementation of a European TMF testing platform consisting of a chain of laboratories measuring TMF properties according to sound metrology principles, thus improving the industrial competitiveness and promoting free trade. In the present paper, the context, scope and content of the TMF-Standard project are described in some detail.