Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to study the effect of adding tailored geometries in specimens to strengthen them and increase their fatigue resistance. Several studies are performed on different geometries. The specimens are produced from aluminum, and water-cut into the desired shape. The results from the experiments show that the fatigue life of the best performing specimens more than double the fatigue life over the control-specimens, simply by cutting holes in the specimen above and below the center hole. The results show that the added voids play an important role in increasing the fatigue life by redistributing the stress and better utilizing the lesser-stressed parts of the specimens.
