Vibration fatigue of a vibration fatigue analysis is the modal analysis, that exposes the natural modes and frequencies of the vibrating structure and enables accurate prediction of the local stress responses for the given excitation. Only then, when the stress responses are known, can vibration fatigue be successfully characterized. The more classical approach of fatigue evaluation consists of cycle counting, using the rainflow algorithm and summation by means of the Palmgren-Miner linear damage hypothesis, that appropriately sums the damages of respective cycles. When the time history is not known, because the load is random ("e.g." a car on a rough road or
Parts-per notation quotients are pure-number coefficients with positive values less than 1. When parts-per notations, including the percent symbol (%), are used in regular prose (as opposed to mathematical expressions), they are still pure-number dimensionless quantities. However, they generally take the literal “parts per” meaning of a comparative ratio (e.g., “2 ppb” would generally be interpreted as “two parts in a billion parts”). Parts-per notations may be expressed in terms of any unit of the same measure. For instance, the coefficient of thermal expansion of a certain brass alloy, "α" = 18.7 ppm/°C, may be expressed as 18.7 (µm/m)/°C, or as 18.7