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MATERIALS SCIENCE
Part of & A Learners Guide
ENGINEERING
AN INTRODUCTORY E-BOOK
Anandh Subramaniam & Kantesh Balani
Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur- 208016
Email: anandh@iitk.ac.in, URL: home.iitk.ac.in/~anandh
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~anandh/E-book.htm
Note: Fatigue loading is sometimes used to get a sharp crack in a notched specimen
Called fatigue pre-cracking.
Factors affecting fatigue failure
Three factors play an important role in fatigue failure:
(i) value of tensile stress (maximum),
(ii) magnitude of variation in stress,
(iii) number of cycles.
Geometrical (specimen geometry) and microstructural aspects also play an important role in
determining fatigue life (and failure). Stress concentrators from both these sources have a
deleterious effect. Residual stress can also play a role.
A corrosive environment can have a deleterious interplay with fatigue.
Let us consider a uniaxial tensile loading. We have already noted* that the yield stress (y)
is the macroscopic yield stress and microscopic yielding (by slip) is initiated at a much
lower stress value. In uniaxial loading this slip usually does not lead to any appreciable
effects or damage to the material/component.
In cyclic loading, on the other hand due to reversal of slip direction, intrusions can be
caused on the surface, which are like small surface cracks (precursors to a full blown crack).
Once a crack forms from these intrusions (due to further cyclic loading), local stress
amplification takes place.
In the presence of the crack the relevant material property to be considered is fracture
toughness.
Load
results obtained is easy to interpret.
Fig.1
time
I. Completely reversed cycle of stress
The simplest loading one can conceive is a sinusoidal wave pattern loading, where the
stress/load oscillates about a mean zero load/stress. The stress amplitude (a) is marked in the
figure.
Fig.2
Compressive Tensile
a
Stress
0 r
Cycles
r max min
II. Purely tensile cycles
The stress/load oscillation may be sinusoidal, but the mean stress/load may be such that the
stress state during the entire cycle is tensile. Needless to say, for a given stress amplitude this
type of loading is more severe (as maximum stress max is min+ r). Various parameters are
defined in the equations below.
r max min
r max min
a
2 2
max min
m r
Tensile stress
2
max
Stress ratio R min
max m
a 1 R
Amplitude ratio A Cycles min
m 1 R 0
III. Random stress cycles
The stress/load oscillation may be sinusoidal, but the mean stress/load may be such that the
stress state during the entire cycle is tensile. Needless to say, for a given stress amplitude this
type of loading is more severe (as maximum stress max is min+ r).
Tensile
Stress
0
Cycles
Compressive
S-N Curve
Engineering fatigue data is usually plotted as a S-N curve. Here S is the stress and N the
number of cycles to failure (usually fracture). The x-axis is plotted as log(N).
The stress plotted could be one of the following: a, max, min. Each plot is for a constant
m, R or A.
It should be noted that the stress values plotted are nominal values and does not take into
account local stress concentrations.
Most fatigue experiments are performed with m = 0 (e.g. rotating beam tests).
Typically the stress value chosen for the stress is low (< y) and hence S-N curves deal with
fatigue failure at a large number of cycles (> 105 cycles). These are the high cycle fatigue
tests.
It is to be noted that the nominal stress < y, but microscopic plasticity occurs, which leads
to the accumulation of damage.
As obvious, if the magnitude of Stress increases the fatigue life decreases.
Low cycle fatigue (N < 104 or 105 cycles) tests are conducted in controlled cycles of elastic
+ plastic strain (strain control mode, instead of stress control).
S-N Curve
Broadly two kinds of S-N curves can be differentiated for two classes of materials.
(1) those where a stress below a threshold value gives a very long life (this stress value is
called the Fatigue Limit / Endurance limit). Steel and Ti come under this category.
(2) those where a decrease in stress increases the fatigue life of the component, but no
distinct fatigue life is observed. Al, Mg, Cu come under this category.
From a application point of view having a sharp fatigue limit is useful (as keeping service
stress below this will help with long life (i.e. large number of cycles) for the component).
400
Fatigue limit = Endurance limit
Fatigue limit
300 Stress below Fatigue
Mild steel
Bending stress (MPa)
The S-N curve is usually determined using 8-12 specimens. Starting with a stress of two-
thirds of the static tensile strength of the material the stress is lowered till specimens do not
fail in about 107 cycles. As expected, there is usually there is considerable scatter in the
data.
Strain controlled cyclic loading
Microstructural aspects of fatigue failure
One of the important mysteries related to fatigue is: how does fatigue failure occur if the
stress value used is below the yield stress?.
Fatigue failure occurs because of microscopic plasticity (which can occur below the yield
stress) and damage accumulation with time (i.e. number of cycles of loading).
Four important stages of fatigue can be identified:
1 Crack initiation (in notched specimens this stage may be absent). This occurs mostly at
surfaces or sometimes at internal interfaces. Crack initiation may take place within about
10% of the total life of the component.
2 Stage-I crack growth (Slip-band* crack growth): growth of crack along planes of high
shear stress. This can be viewed as essentially extension of the slip process which lead to
crack formation (something like deepening of the crack formed).
3 Stage-II crack growth: in this stage the crack grows along directions of maximum
tensile stress. Hence, crack propagation is trans-granular.
4 Ductile failure: reduction in load bearing area (due to crack propagation) leads to
ultimate failure.
The crack which forms after stage-1 can be removed by annealing (i.e. the damage is
reversible at that stage).
In parallel with dislocation activity, fatigue loading can give rise to an increased
concentration of vacancies (as compared to uniform loading). These vacancies can further play a role in
processes like climb, over-aging of precipitates, etc. (depending on the material and context).
Static loading
Fig.4
Fig.2
Fatigue crack propagation
Once a crack has formed its growth can be understood in two stages.
(i) Stage-I. Growth along slip bands due to shear stress (which lead to the formation of the
intrusions), which can be thought of as crack deepening. The extension of the crack is only a
few grain diameters during this stage at the rate of few nm per cycle.
(ii) Stage-II marks faster crack growth of microns per cycle and is dictated by the maximum
normal stress present. Striations characteristic of fatigue crack propagation are seen in this
stage (fatigue striations). Each striation is produced by one cycle of stress. Sometimes these
striations are difficult to detect and hence if striations are not found it does not imply that
fatigue crack propagation was absent. The standard mechanism used to explain this
phenomenon is shown in figure below (the tensile part of the cycle). During the compressive
portion of the cycle the crack faces tend to close and the blunted crack tends to re-sharpen.
The important portion of the fatigue failure is the Stage-II crack growth and hence
understanding the same helps one predict the failure cycles/time and hence plan for fail safe
design (the component can be replaced before the crack grows to a critical value leading to failure: the concept of preventive
maintenance).
* Note: in compression K is not defined and hence K compression is taken to be zero. However, the compressive part of the
loading is important from mechanistic and other points of view (including the time involved).
A plot of da/dN vs K can the divided into three regions.
Region-1 slow or negligible crack growth.
Region-2 stable crack growth with power law behaviour (linear behaviour between crack
growth rate and log of stress intensity factor range (logK) (called Paris law)).
Region-3 unstable crack growth leading to failure (as Kmax exceeds the Kc of the
material).
Further, in low SFE materials, the grain size plays an important role in determining the
fatigue life. This role is important only under conditions of low stress (where number of
cycles to failure is high and stage-I cracking is predominant). Under such circumstances the
following relation is often observed: 1
( Fatigue life) ( grain diameter) 2
In high SFE materials, dislocation cell structures form on deformation and these play a
more important role in stage-I cracking as compared to grain size.
The presence of interstitial and substitutional alloying elements play an important role in
determining the S-N curve (fatigue life). Interstitial solutes, which contribute to strain aging
give rise to a fatigue limit in the S-N curve. Substitutional elements increase fatigue life
without introducing a fatigue limit.