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As stress is reduced, the life gets longer. Very coarsely, a 10% reduction in stress (either by design change or by a 10% reduction in load) will double the life of the part. Conversely, a 10% increase will halve the life of the part.
For steel parts, there comes a point (the Endurance Limit) where the stress is low enough that the part will never break (usually somewhere just below 1/2 Ultimate Tensile Strength). With aluminum, there is no such point - no matter how low the stress, it will always break given enough cycles.
So VERY coarsely, going from a street tire with a lateral capability of 0.9g to a DOT-R with a capability of 1.2g (and assuming the capability is utilized) would cut the life expectancy of the wheel by a factor of 10.
Island makes a great point - the failure mode is pretty much ideal.
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'88 Coupe Lagoon Green
"D'ouh!" "Marge - it takes two to lie. One to lie, and one to listen"
"We must not allow a Mineshaft Gap!"
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