This paper deals with the influence of interference fit coupling on the fatigue strength of holed plates. The effect was investigated both experimentally and numerically. Axial fatigue tests have been carried out on holed specimens made of high performance steel (1075MPa of Ultimate strength and 990MPa of Yield strength) with or without a pin, made of the same material, press fitted into their central hole. Three different conditions have been investigated: free hole specimens, specimens with 0.6% of nominal specific interference and specimens with 2% of nominal specific interference. The experimental stress-life (S–N) curves pointed out an increased fatigue life of the interference fit specimens compared with the free hole ones. The numerical investigation was performed in order to analyse the stress fields by applying an elastic plastic 2D simulation with a commercial Finite Element software. The stress history and distribution along the contact interference of the fitted samples indicates a significant reduction of the local stress range due to the externally applied loading (remote stress) since a residual and compressive stress field is generated by the pin insertion.

The indentation response of a pseudoelastic nickel-titanium based shape memory alloy (SMA) has been analyzed. Indentation tests have been carried out at room temperature using a spherical diamond tip and indentation loads in the range 50-500 mN in order to promote a large stress-induced transformation zone in the indentation region and, consequently, to avoid local effects due to microstructural variations. The measured load-displacement data have been analyzed to obtain information on the pseudoelastic response of the alloy. To aid this analysis numerical simulations were performed, by using a commercial finite element (FE) software code and a special constitutive model for SMAs, so as to understand better the microstructural evolution occurring during the indentation process. Finally, the FE model has been used to analyze the effects of temperature on the indentation response of the alloy. This analysis revealed a marked variation of both the maximum and residual penetration depths with increasing test temperature.