SURFACE LOADING

ROUGHNESS

PARAMETERS

EVOLUTION

UNDER

FATIGUE

Keywords: surface roughness, amplitude parameters, fatigue, 3D profilometry ABSTRACT The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate that in order to have a complete characterisation of fatigue degradation is necessary to analyse the evolution of surfaces roughness which can come a stress concentrations. An experimental investigation has been carried out to see the evolution of the roughness amplitude parameters under a constant amplitude fatigue loading. Several bending fatigue tests were carried out using a flat specimen. It has been also confirmed that stress level applied on the specimen has an influence on the evolution of the roughness parameters during a fatigue test. INTRODUCTION Mechanical processes can introduce residual stresses into a material. For example, tensile residual stresses can be generated from machining and compressive residual stresses may be introduced in working processing in a material. The surface condition can be characterized by considering two factors: roughness surface and residual stress in the surface layer. Irregularities along the surface act as stress concentrations and result in crack initiation at the surface. In general, surface finish is more critical for high-strength steels and high-cycle fatigue where crack initiation dominates the fatigue life. It is well established that fatigue cracks, in most cases, initiate at the surface grains. The quality of this surface would then have an effect on its fatigue life. While in the case of low cycle fatigue crack propagation dominates the fatigue life, the effect of surface finish on fatigue strength is minimal. There are many surface roughness parameters that can be used to analyze a surface. The most common surface roughness parameter used in industry is the average roughness ( Sa), this is well known but is not sufficient to describe a functional characteristic and characterisation of the surface degradation, a multiparameter surface roughness analysis is recommended. In the literature, many individual or hybrid surface roughness parameters are in vogue. These include amplitude, spatial and hybrid parameters. The parameters of importance were expected
to be the Sv and Sq of the measured surfaces. The variations of both parameters showed a reasonable degree of correlation with fatigue initiation at different stress levels. This variations can be a basis of establishing the functional relationships between surface finish parameters and fatigue failure.

The Root Mean Square (RMS) parameter Sq, (ISO 4287-1997) is defined as:
Sq = 1 MN
M 1N 1 k= 0 l= 0

[ z ( xk , yl )]

(1)

Sq is more sensitive to peaks and valleys then Sa, because the amplitudes are squared. Sq is very similar to Sa, which practically replaced it for general use. Sq parameter is of importance for statistic monitoring of the surface profile because Sq corresponds to the standard deviation from profile coordinates Maximum Valley Depth Sv, is defined as the largest valley depth value. Sv is a good parameter where stress is a major factor.

EXPERIMNETAL PROCEDURE

This paper is an experimental study of characterizing surface roughness in relation to fatigue, and the role of this roughness parameters in fatigue damage initiation. In this experiment the speciments was grouped on three roughness levels, were fatigued using constant amplitude loading at one stress level. A correlation between surface finish parameters and fatigue initiation was established. The aim of this study is to characterise the surface textures and the evolution of the roughness amplitude parameters under a constant amplitude fatigue loading using Profilometer PRO500 3D (with stylus) to measure the surface topography (Precision Devices Inc., 2005) assisted by a dedicated soft (The Scanning Probe Image Processor SPIPTM, Version 4.7, 2008). Stylus instruments are based on the principle of running a probe across a surface in order to detect variations in height as a function of distance.

Fig.1 Dimension of plate specimen (mm) Steel specimens, were prepared to three various degrees of roughness on S355JR. Before each experiment, the steel plates (fig.1) were thoroughly cleaned with acetone. The surface roughness of all steel plates were measured for all the three kinds of surfaces in the three points, because a single 3D measurement with Profilometer PRO500 is not sufficient for qualifying the surface quality. There were investigated a maximum areas of 500m x 500m with PRO 500, all records have been done with 100 point on each line. Measurements were made for evolution in time of the roughness parameters Sv, Sq at one single level stress. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The evolution of roughness parameters Sq, Sv is presented in tables 1, 2 and figs. 2, 3. In the fig. 4 is presented the virtual images acquired with Profilometer PRO500 from the moment when the roughness parameters Sq and Sv recorder a maximum values. The experimental tests indicate an upward trend from the roughness parameters Sq and Sv. Is observed existence of growth sudden from evolution of this parameters at same levels from time. With increasing of roughness, the time of appearance from highest value is small. Maximum Valley Depth Sv register a growth because of the stress concentrations. The analysis of parameter Sq signify an increase of statistically speaking of changes from profile as a results of fatigue. Table 1. Analysis of variance for roughness parameters Sq of plate specimen

c Figure 2. Evolution of a Sq roughness parameters during a bending fatigue tests, a) Specimen1, b) Specimen 2, c) Specimen 3. Table 2. Analysis of variance for roughness parameters Sv of plate specimen

c Figure 3. Evolution of a Sv roughness parameters during a bending fatigue tests, a) Specimen1, b) Specimen 2, c) Specimen 3.

c Figure 4. Virtual images acquired with Profilometer PRO500. Scales in microns: X(1:1), Y(1:1), Z (10:1), a) Specimen 1, The lowest value for Sq and Sv, b) Specimen 2 c) Specimen 3, The highest value for Sq and Sv

CONCLUSIONS

The evolution of the Root Mean Square parameter Sq and the Maximum Valley Depth Sv indicate profile changes in the surface layer during the fatigue process; The evolution of the parameters Sq and Sv occurs due the influence of roughness who give rise to a stress concentration; It has been validated more ones that is not enough to use only one surface parameter to characterize the surface degradation of a plate specimen subjected to fatigue loading; Experimental procedure allows determining the time at which accumulation of microcracks converge to master crack. It has been observed that the applied load has an influence on the evolution of the roughness parameters;