Danièle Wagner

Investigations on the Fatigue Crack Propagation Threshold in Very High Cycle Fatigue

Pariss law of fatigue crack propagation rate is well applied in the defect-tolerance fatigue approach. When carry out same approach in the very high cycle fatigue domain, the understanding of mechanism about fatigue crack propagation threshold which is obviously important, is helped. In the present work here, the fatigue crack propagation threshold of a surface crack for an Armco iron loaded in the VHCF regime was investigated by a new approach which combines the fracture surface analysis and the temperature recording on the surface during the test by an infra-red camera. The experiments were carried out on a sheet specimen under a 20 kHz ultrasonic frequency loading with IR images registration. Three stages of fatigue crack were identified with different mechanisms. It is found that the transition between initiation and crack propagation corresponds to the intrinsic fatigue threshold. It takes more than 99% of the gigacycle fatigue life to achieve this transition size.

Relation between the Mechanical Behaviour of a High Strength Steel and the Microstructure in Gigacycle Fatigue

Many components can reach or exceed 109 cycles in their service time. When fatigue life is beyond 106, the Wöhler S-N curve was always considered to be asymptotic in horizontal axis, but the fatigue behaviour over 106 cycles can not be neglected. It is not usual to carry out a fatigue test beyond 109 cycles due to the conventional fatigue test’s constraints, time consuming and expensive. High strength steel is widely applied in automobile, railway industry after surface treatment in order to improve performance of material in practice. Carburizing process hardens surface to increase wear and fatigue resistance and shot peening has a beneficial effect on the material fatigue strength from the surface residual compressive stresses. A piezoelectric gigacycle fatigue machine is used to do the tests in gigacycle regime on specimens with different surface treatments. The effect of different surface treatments is investigated in gigacycle regime at a frequency of 20KHz with a fixed stress ratio R=0.1 at room temperature. Moreover, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) observations of fracture surfaces are analyzed to evaluate the mechanism of damage related to surface treatments, microstructure scored inclusion size. The role of inclusions and microstructure is emphasized at 109 cycles.

Dislocations Gliding Study by IR Thermography in C-Mn Steels with Different Solute Atoms Content in the Gigacycle Fatigue Domain

Tests were performed on two Carbon-Manganese steels (A42 and A48 steels, French standard) in the gigacycle fatigue domain thanks to a piezoelectric fatigue machine working at 20000Hz. During the tests, temperature recordings were achieved by an infrared camera for various stress amplitudes. The main difference between the two steels compositions was the aluminum content (0.045% for the A42 steel and 0.004% for the A48 steel), and the carbon content (0.140% for the A 42 steel and 0.198% for the A48 steel). In the A48 steel, the few aluminum content induces a higher free content of solute nitrogen in the lattice. Mechanical spectroscopy tests were performed and gave qualitative results on the solute contents repartition in the lattice. The temperature increase recorded during the fatigue tests for the two steels are different at the beginning of the tests. The differences can be explained by the different repartition of the solute atoms which induces a different dislocation gliding between the two materials. At the end of the tests, the thermal recordings are similar and attributed to the evolution of the solute atoms repartition and the dislocation structure.

Effect of low cycle fatigue pre-damage on very high cycle fatigue

Carbon-manganese steel is often applied in components of pipes in nuclear plant. Ultrasonic fatigue tests following low cycle fatigue (LCF) cycles damaged are used to study the strength of very high cycle fatigure (VHCF). The comparison of test results of simple VHCF and cumulative fatigue (LCF plus VHCF) shows that LCF load influences the following VHCF strength. Continuum damage mechanics model is extended to VHCF region. The effect of LCF load on VHCF is studied by an improved cumulative damage model.

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.

Very High Cycle Fatigue Behavior and Thermographic Analysis of High Strength Steel

Very high cycle fatigue behavior of high strength steel, were investigated using ultrasonic fatigue testing equipment at 20 kHz up to 109cycles. S-N curves at room temperature with different stress ratio (R=0.01 and R=0.1) was determined. The experimental results show that fatigue strength decrease with increasing number of cycles between 105 and 109. SEM examination of fracture surface reveals that fatigue damage was governed by the formation of cracks, and subsurface crack initiation was in the very long life range. The results shown that the portions of life attributed to subsurface crack initiation between 107 and 109 cycles are 99%.

Very High Cycle Fatigue Behavior of Carbon Manganese Steels

An ultrasonic fatigue testing system capable of operating at temperatures at 250 has been introduce to study the fatigue behavior of carbon manganese steels (A42 and A48) and loading frequency of approximately 20 kHz. Endurance limit results were comparable to those generated at room temperature to determine the effect of temperature. Scanning electron microscopy was then used to determine the initiation sites and the failure mechanisms. Initial results indicate that fatigue strength decrease a little at 250 , interior inclusions were the major microstructural feature responsible for crack initiation in the alloy.