Hence, the overall loss factor may be written as

	(11.5)

Note , the endurance strength against fatigue is introduced for nondimensionalization of the maximum stress.

• the first factor on the right-hand side, namely,  depends only on the material properties, and is therefore called the material factor.
  
• The second factor, i.e. is governed by the bending stress distribution along the beam length. This is called the longitudinal stress distribution factor.

• The third factor, namely, depends only on the cross-section shape and is referred to as the cross-sectional shape factor.

For the same material and loading condition, different cross sections result in varying values of  and, hence, of . The following table shows the value of  for three different cross-sections, each having the same depth ,