Antoine Blanche

Energy balance properties of steels subjected to high cycle fatigue

This paper presents an experimental protocol developed to locally estimate different energy balance terms associated with the high cycle fatigue (HCF) of steels. Deformation and dissipated energy are respectively derived from displacement and temperature fields obtained using digital image correlation (DIC) and quantitative infrared thermography (QIRT) techniques. The combined processing of visible and infrared images reveals the precocious, gradual and heterogeneous development of fatigue localization zones. It also highlights the plastic character of dissipative heat sources (i.e. proportional to the loading frequencies), and the progress of fatigue dissipation, observing the drift of the mean dissipation per cycle for a given loading. The substantial of internal energy variations during HCF loading are finally underlined. The paper ends with a discussion on the consequences of such energy balance properties in terms of HCF modeling.

Energy Dissipation in Very High Cycle Fatigue for Polycrystalline Pure Copper and Armco Iron

This paper aims at a deeper understanding of microplastic mechanisms leading to crack initiation in ductile metals in Very High Cycle Fatigue (VHCF). Fatigue tests were conducted using an ultrasonic technique at loading frequency of 20 kHz. The microplastic mechanisms are revealed via observations of slip markings at the specimen surface and self-heating measurements due to intrinsic dissipation. Pure copper and Armco iron (which contains a very low amount of carbon) were investigated. Both are single-phase ductile materials but the crystallographic structure of copper is face-centered cubic while it is body centered cubic for Armco iron. A good correlation was found between slip markings initiation and dissipation for both materials. The dissipation for both materials is of the same order of magnitude but the location, the morphology and the evolution over cycles of slip markings were found different.

Energy Dissipation and Self-Heating due to Microplastic Deformation Mechanisms at Very High Cycle Fatigue for Single-Phase Ductile Metals

This paper aims at a deeper understanding of mechanisms leading to crack initiation in ductile metals in Very High Cycle Fatigue (VHCF). The VHCF regime is associated with stress amplitudes lower than the conventional fatigue limit and numbers of cycles higher than 109. Tests were conducted using an ultrasonic technique at loading frequency of 20 kHz. The mechanisms leading to crack initiation express via slip bands at the specimen surface and self-heating due to intrinsic dissipation. Thermal maps were used to estimate the mean dissipation and its change with number of cycles and stress amplitudes in case of pure copper polycrystals. At the same time, the surface relief changes due to plasticity were characterized using optical and scanning electronic microscopes. A good correlation was found between slip band initiation and dissipation. Dissipation and slip band amount always increased over the number of cycles. At very small stress amplitudes, no slip band appeared up to 108 cycles but the material was found to dissipate energy. Results derived from tests performed at high loading frequency on pure cupper specimens showed a drift of dissipative regimes incompatible with concepts of fatigue limit and/or asymptotic cyclic stability. These results reveal that the material never reached a steady state. Therefore it could break at higher number of cycles.