# Fast Fatigue Life Prediction of Polymers Through Combined Constitutive Mathematical and AI-Based Modeling

**Authors:** T. Barriere, S. Carbillet, X. Gabrion, C. Guyeux, S. Holopainen

PMC · DOI: 10.3390/polym18040456 · 2026-02-11

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to predict polymer fatigue life using a combination of mathematical models and AI, reducing the need for expensive experiments.

## Contribution

The novel approach combines constitutive modeling with AI to efficiently predict high-cycle polymer fatigue.

## Key findings

- Polymers show S−N curve characteristics similar to metals, enabling parameterization via the Coffin–Manson–Basquin model.
- Constitutive models generate high-quality data for training AI models, improving computational efficiency.
- The combined framework accelerates high-cycle fatigue design for polymers and ductile materials.

## Abstract

The prediction of fatigue life is critical in the design process, and current models offer a viable alternative to costly and time-consuming experimental fatigue testing. The constitutive fatigue model used integrates low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue behavior. This model is grounded on the concept of fatigue damage evolution and incorporates a moving endurance surface within the stress space, eliminating the need for ambiguous cycle-counting methods. An interesting observation is that many polymers exhibit macroscopic fatigue characteristics, specifically, the form of the S−N curve similar to those observed in metals. Consequently, all fatigue model parameters were expressed in terms of the well-established Coffin–Manson–Basquin model parameters. However, the constitutive mathematical modeling itself is computationally time-consuming, particularly when applied to predict high-cycle fatigue across large design spaces. Therefore, the proposed model was utilized exclusively to generate high-quality data for training machine learning models that offer significantly improved computational efficiency. The high-cycle fatigue design of polymers and other ductile materials, traditionally dependent on expensive and time-consuming experimental methods, is now expedited through an advanced modeling framework that combines constitutive mathematical modeling with AI-based approaches.

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** traffic accidents (MESH:D000081084), Fatigue Damage (MESH:D005221), injuries (MESH:D014947), fatigue failure (MESH:D051437), ML (MESH:C537366), fatigue fracture (MESH:D015775)
- **Chemicals:** PC polymer (MESH:C119516), Polymers (MESH:D011108), HCF (MESH:C571233), Lexan  223R granulate (-), PC (MESH:C053518)
- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606]

## Figures

10 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943988/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943988