Issue 77

M. Al Khazali et alii, Fracture and Structural Integrity, 77 (2026) 56-70; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.77.05

Effect of corrosion damage on the fatigue behavior of S460NL High Strength Steel under cyclic loading

Mohammad Al Khazali Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute of Structural Mechanics, Veve ř í 331/95, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic Mohammad.Sami.Al.Khazali@vutbr.cz, https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6998-9264 Stanislav Seitl, Lucie Malikova Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute of Structural Mechanics Veve ř í 331/95, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic and Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics of Materials, v. v. i., Žižkova 22, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic Stanislav.Seitl@vut.cz, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4953-4324 Lucie.Malikova@vut.cz, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5868-5717 Vít K ř ivý, Miroslav Vacek VŠB-TU Ostrava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ludvíka Podéšt ě 1875, 708 33 Ostrava, Czech Republic vit.krivy@vsb.cz, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7251-2473 miroslav.vacek@vsb.cz, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9197-856X

Citation: Al Khazali, M.S., Seitl, S., Malíkova, L., K ř ivý, V., Vacek, M., Effect of Corrosion Damage on the Fatigue Behavior of S460NL High-Strength Steel under Cyclic Loading, Fracture and Structural Integrity, 77 (2026) 56 77.

A BSTRACT . The present study investigates the influence of corrosion exposure on the fatigue behavior of S460NL high-strength structural steel, a material that is frequently utilized in offshore and civil engineering structures. Accelerated corrosion was simulated under controlled laboratory conditions for exposure periods of 3 days, 6 days, and 6 + 3 days, in addition to specimens subjected to natural atmospheric corrosion. To this end, fatigue tests were performed to obtain S – N curves, and the results were evaluated using Basquin's law and the probabilistic Castillo–Canteli model. The findings indicate that corrosion has a substantial impact on fatigue resistance. The endurance limit exhibited a decline from 214 MPa for the reference specimens to 176 MPa following three days of corrosion, 135 MPa after six days, and approximately 92 MPa after combined corrosion exposure, signifying a reduction of up to 57%. Fractographic observations revealed that corrosion pits act as stress concentrators, thereby promoting early crack

Received: 04.02.2026 Accepted: 30.03.2026 Published: 04.04.2026 Issue: 07.2026

Copyright: © 2026 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

56