Abstract Objective The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFQ) is a widely used instrument to assess fatigue in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Psychometric properties of the scale and discriminative ...abilities were examined. Methods A total of 361 patients with CFS and 1615 individuals in the community were assessed with the CFQ. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to explore the structure of the scale. Receiver-operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to investigate the discriminative properties. Results Two components, physical and mental fatigue, were identified in the CFS patient group and in the general population samples. Area under the curve for ROC was .91. The fatigue scale effectively discriminates, at high scores, between CFS patients and the general population. Conclusion Physical and mental fatigue are clearly separable components of fatigue. The CFQ can discriminate reliably between clinical and nonclinical conditions.
•The corrosive environment accelerates failure at stresses two thirds of in-air fatigue limit.•A conditional probability density function is used for the statistical assessment of fatigue life.•The ...environmentally induced cracks tend to initiate from localized corrosion pitting.•The theoretical fatigue limit is obtained based on a low probability event.
The effects of environment (in air and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution) and artificially-induced surface scratches are investigated on the fatigue properties of railway EA4T (also called 25CrMo4) alloy steel. This steel is found to be markedly sensitive to the chloride-containing environment, with cracking at stresses two thirds of the in-air fatigue limit (+/−326 MPa) under rotating bending (Wöhler) tests. The scratched specimens show even shorter lifetime at stresses below 300 MPa and no fatigue limit is found down to 100 MPa. The fracture surfaces are characterized by the initiation of cracks from multiple sources and intergranular cracking. The fatigue failure of smooth specimens tends to initiate from localized corrosion pitting, while the corrosive environment facilitates crack initiation without pitting for scratched specimens. The fatigue crack growth rate in NaCl solution is slightly higher than that in air. Within the framework of defect-tolerant design, El-Haddad modified Kitagawa-Takahashi (KT) diagrams are constructed to explore the variation in fatigue strength and the defect assessment for both conditions. The modified KT model, which takes the short crack behavior into account, is in better agreement with the experimental results than the original KT diagrams.
Abstract
Introduction
Fatigue from sleep loss and circadian misalignment causes automobile driving performance impairment. Metrics based on steering wheel angle, which is straightforward to measure, ...could be used to quantify this impairment. As the tail of the distribution of steering wheel angles (absolute magnitude of deviation from center) increases with fatigue, we investigated whether driving performance impairment could be quantified based on the prevalence of steering wheel excursions beyond a given angle threshold. We used data from two published laboratory studies of simulated shift work, in which fatigue remained low during day shifts but increased across time awake during night shifts.
Methods
N=37 healthy adults (ages 26.8±5.2y; 25 men) were assigned to a simulated night shift schedule (awake 20:00-10:00) or day shift schedule (awake 08:00-22:00; study 1 only). After an adaptation period, participants underwent two 5-day shift cycles with an intervening rest period. Driving performance was measured on a high-fidelity simulator during adaptation (data not used) and four times at 3h intervals during each shift day. Every drive involved 30min driving at 55mph, including ten 0.5mi uneventful straightaways being considered here. Steering wheel angle was measured at 72Hz (study 1) or 60Hz (study 2). A total of 1,471 drives (31,394,498 angle measurements) were available for analysis.
Results
We investigated angle thresholds across 0.01-0.25rad in 0.01rad intervals and counted the corresponding number of threshold excursions in each drive for each participant. For study 1, we applied mixed-effects ANOVA with fixed effects for condition and time awake, and their interaction, and determined the local effect size for interaction. A 0.03rad (1.7°) threshold yielded the greatest effect size, f²=0.031 (small). For this threshold, we repeated the analysis using the data from both studies, controlling for study. The interaction was significant (F3,1428=13.23, p<0.001), showing low driving impairment across time awake during day shifts but increasing impairment across time awake during night shifts.
Conclusion
The prevalence of steering wheel excursions beyond a 1.7° angle threshold yielded sensitivity to fatigue-related driving performance impairment during simulated night shifts. Further research will extend our results to driving through curves and with greater fatigue levels.
Support (if any)
FMCSA DTMC75-07-D-00006
Coronavirus 2 is responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the main sequela is persistent fatigue. Post-viral fatigue is common and affects patients with mild, ...asymptomatic coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). However, the exact mechanisms involved in developing post-COVID-19 fatigue remain unclear. Furthermore, physical and cognitive impairments in these individuals have been widely described. Therefore, this review aims to summarize and propose tools from a multifaceted perspective to assess COVID-19 infection. Herein, we point out the instruments that can be used to assess fatigue in long-term COVID-19: fatigue in a subjective manner or fatigability in an objective manner. For physical and mental fatigue, structured questionnaires were used to assess perceived symptoms, and physical and cognitive performance assessment tests were used to measure fatigability using reduced performance.
•Fatigue is the main sequela of long COVID-19 and needs follow-up.•There are physical and mental manifestations of fatigue in long COVID-19.•This review presents the most used instruments in assessing fatigue in long COVID-19.•Muscle strength, walking, and functional tests assess physical fatigue in long COVID-19.•Executive function psychological tests assess mental fatigue in long COVID-19.
The Handbook of Operator Fatigue provides a comprehensive account of this subject to serve as the definitive reference work for researchers, students and practitioners alike. The volume features 30 ...chapters written by experts to address each important facet of fatigue, including: the scale of the fatigue problem, the nature of fatigue, how to assess fatigue, the impact of fatigue on health, fatigue in the workplace, the neurological basis of fatigue, sleep disorders, and the design of countermeasures to fatigue.
•The separate S-N curves are firstly detected in additively manufactured metals.•Fatigue cracks originate from gas pores, lack of fusions, and columnar grains.•ΔK at the border of rough area ...corresponds to propagation threshold for long cracks.•Fatigue sensitivity of maximal micro-crack type, size, and location increase successively.
Ultrasonic fatigue tests were performed to investigate high and very high cycle fatigue behaviors of a laser additively manufactured Inconel 718 (IN718) alloy in the as-deposited condition. The results indicate that the competition failure behavior between the surface and interior crack initiation results in the separate S-N curve. Both manufacturing defects (e.g., gas pore, lack of fusion) and columnar grains (matrix) observed in the microstructure could act as the original fatigue micro-cracks due to the effective restriction on manufacturing defects. The fatigue sensitivity levels increase successively in terms of the type, size, and location of the maximal micro-crack.
•AlSi10Mg additively manufactured by 3 different processes.•Fatigue properties are controlled by the size of manufacturing defects.•Defect-based modelling allows to express a relationship between ...fatigue properties and material quality.
Ability to predict the fatigue resistance of parts produced by additive manufacturing (AM) is a very current and frequently relevant open issue. The qualification of AM structural parts often needs a costly and time-consuming series of fatigue tests, on both samples and full-scale parts. Proper control of the AM process allows obtaining comparable and even better fatigue resistance than those obtained with standard manufacturing. Despite this, the experimental results often show a large scatter, mostly due to the presence of defects. In this framework, the present work summarizes the research activity aimed at modelling the high cycle fatigue (HCF) resistance in the presence of defects, focusing on AlSi10Mg produced by selective laser melting. Three batches of samples were investigated by X-ray micro computed tomography and tested under fatigue. A lower bound resistance curve was obtained, which introduced artificial defects of size corresponding to that of the largest occurring defects.
The analysis shows that a combination of defect-tolerant design with well-established and newly proposed fracture mechanics methods is the key to expressing the relationship between the fatigue strength and material quality. This is done through suitable statistics of material defects induced by the AM process.
The same concepts are then applied in a fatigue crack growth simulation model based on the maximum defect size, for estimating both the life and scatter of the data in the region of elastic material response. Based on this wide activity, it can be concluded that fracture mechanics-based analysis appears to be the tool needed for supporting the application of additive manufacturing to safety-critical components and their qualification.
This editorial beckons readers to the intricate relationship between fatigue and motor control skills. This theme is explored in the ensuing special issue through the lens of esteemed researchers in ...the field. The articles within this issue provide a comprehensive and insightful analysis of how fatigue acts as a silent saboteur, subtly undermining the efficiency and efficacy of motor responses and skills. Through a tapestry of carefully conducted studies and thought-provoking findings, contributors shed light on how fatigue insidiously affects neuromuscular responses, from altering muscle activation during specific tasks to influencing the onset of muscle soreness. This special issue, therefore, serves as a launching pad for a much-needed research agenda. It invites scholars and practitioners alike to engage with and further investigate the relationship between fatigue and motor control skills, thereby contributing to our growing understanding and knowledge of this pivotal area.
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