Durability is the most important factor in the design of heat-exchangers to meet the specifications of the customers. To predict the durability, endurance tests are carried out. In this thesis, one of the endurance tests, thermal cycling is performed for three different internal coolant flows until failure which is known as Wöhler test. A tool is developed in MATLAB that could import data from all kinds of endurance tests and visualizes time histories of every channel of the test (test parameters such as temperature, pressure, flow). An algorithm is developed for Level Crossing counting method which works based on the Markov cycle counting method. This produces Level crossing curves (LCC) for all the channels of the test which says how well a test has been performed and the total number of cycles of the test. It was observed that the LCCs obtained from the tool gives accurate results when compared with those obtained from LMS software whose approach of producing LCCs is Rainflow cycle counting method. Strain measurements are performed for the same flowrates as that of the Wöhler tests. The results from strain measurements and Wöhler tests are used in the determination of Basquin’s coefficient of the Wöhler curve. It was observed that the optimal value of Basquin’s coefficient is 3.4.

The topic of this PhD. thesis is the issue of determining fatigue characteristics of selected cement-based composites. First, the history of fatigue of metal is mentioned, and some basic notions related to fatigue are clarified. The thesis also summarizes current research in the field of cement-based composites fatigue, and failure mechanisms of plain concrete during static and dynamic tests are described. Furthermore, the thesis deals with the evaluation of static and dynamic experiments’ results with extensive series of C30/37 and C45/55 class concrete specimens. In order to achieve relevant fatigue test evaluation which takes into account the age of the specimens, a new correction procedure of the data measured based on the approximation of the basic fracture-mechanics parameters of tested materials over time was suggested and verified. The annexes of this thesis present complete data obtained during static and dynamic experiments.

The diploma thesis deals with the evaluation of the lifetimes of smooth and notched specimens. The comparison of their lifetimes is focused on the case of high-frequency cyclic loading in the area of high-cycle and gigacycle fatigue of materials. The theory of critical distances is used to evaluate and recalculate the life curves of the notched specimens. The effect of the notch is quantified using the Line method. The critical length parameter is determined so that the life curve of the notched specimens corresponds to the curve measured on smooth specimens. The result is the dependence of the critical length parameter on the number of cycles to fracture. Knowledge of critical length parameters can be used to determine the lifetime of notched specimens as well as real notched components using the results of fatigue tests of smooth specimens.