The fatigue strength and fatigue life of high-strength steels are greatly affected by their surface roughness. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms responsible for fatigue failure of the high-strength steel 42CrMo. Bending fatigue tests of stepped shafts with different levels of surface roughness were conducted to observe the fatigue live reduction affected by surface topography. Besides, the mechanical properties of 42CrMo and its strain–life relationship were established. Moreover, the analytical formulas to describe the stress concentration factor (SCF) and fatigue notch factor (FNF) induced by surface topography were introduced. To estimate the fatigue life of machined specimens with the consideration of surface roughness, the elastic portion of the total strain–life curve of the material was revised with the proposed analytical FNF imposed by surface topography. Comparisons between the estimated fatigue lives and experimentally obtained fatigue lives show that the effect of surface roughness on fatigue lives could be estimated effectively and conveniently by the proposed procedure.

The harmonic reducer, with its advantages of high precision, low noise, light weight, and high speed ratio, has been widely used in aerospace solar wing deployment mechanisms, antenna pointing mechanisms, robot joints, and other precision transmission fields. Accurately predicting the performance of the harmonic reducer under various application conditions is of great significance to the high reliability and long life of the harmonic reducer. In this paper, a set of automatic harmonic reducer performance test systems is designed. By using the CANOpen bus interface to control the servo motor as the drive motor, through accurately controlling the motor speed and rotation angle, collecting the angle, torque, and current in real time, the life cycle test of space harmonic reducer was carried out in high vacuum and low temperature environment on the ground. Then, the collected data were automatically analyzed and calculated. The test data of the transmission accuracy, backlash, and transmission efficiency of the space harmonic reducer were obtained. It is proven by experiments that the performance data of the harmonic reducer in space work can be more accurately obtained by using the test system mentioned in this paper, which is convenient for further research on related lubricating materials.

In this paper, we investigate pulsed eddy current (PEC) testing based on a rectangular sensor for the purpose of defect shape mapping in electric vehicle lightweight alloy material. Different dimensional defects were machined on the 3003 aluminum alloy and detected using the A-scan technique and C-scan imaging in two scanning directions. The experiment results indicated that defect plane shape could be preliminarily obtained and length and width could be estimated based upon C-scan contour images. Consequently, the comparison of results between the two directions showed that the C-scan identification in the direction of magnetic flux was better than in the direction of the exciting current. Finally, subsurface defects and irregular defects were detected to verify the performance of shape mapping as a recommended approach. The conclusion drawn indicates that the proposed method, based on PEC rectangular sensors, is an effective approach in reconstructing a defect’s shape.