Lecture Notes 6.

1- Fatigue

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• Metal subjected to a repetitive/fluctuating
load will fail at a stress much lower than
required
• Failure under dynamic loading called fatigue
failure
• Occurs without warning
• Equipment subjected to vibration and
repeated loading are prone to fatigue failures:
– Automobile
– Aircrafts
– Compressors
– Pumps
– Turbines
– Etc.
• Brittle-appearing fracture
– No gross deformation
• Fracture surface is usually normal to the direction
of the principal tensile stress (macroscopic scale)
• Fatigue failure is recognized by the appearance of
the fracture surface
– Smooth region: due to the rubbing action - crack
propagation
– Rough region: where the member has failed in a
ductile manner
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• “Beach marks”, series of ring progressing
inward
– Progress of the fracture
• Fatigue usually occurs at a point of stress
concentration such as
– Sharp corner
– Notches
– Metallurgical stress concentration like an
inclusion

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• 3 factors are necessary to cause fatigue fracture
– Maximum tensile stress of high value
– Large enough variation or fluctuation in the applied stress
– Sufficient large number of cycles
• Other variables
– Stress concentration
– Corrosion
– Temperature
– Overload
– Metallurgical structure
– Residual stresses
– Combined stresses
 Stress cycles
• Reverse cycles of stress of sinusoidal form
• Obtained from a rotating-beam fatigue
machine
– Rotating shaft
• Constant speed without overload
• Minimum and maximum stresses are equal
• Tensile stresses are positive
• Compressive stresses are negative
Stress cycles

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• Stress range

• Alternating stress

• Mean stress

• Stress ratio

• Amplitude ratio

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S-N Curve
S-N Curve

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Statistical nature of the S-N curve

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Effect of mean stress on fatigue

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Cyclic Stress strain curve

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• Cycle stress-strain curve described by

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 Low Cycle Fatigue
• Some engineering failures occur at high stress
and low numbers of cycle to failures
• This type of failure must be taken in
consideration when designing:
– Nuclear pressure vessels
– Steam turbine
– Most other power machinery
• Coffin- Manson relation described by:
• Small b
– Longer fatigue lives
• Morrow equation

• Lower values of n’ result in increased fatigue

life
 Strain-life equation
• Equation describe the relationship
between plastic strain and fatigue life in the low-
cycle (high strain) fatigue regime
• For high-cycle (low strain) regime, where the
nominal strains are elastic, Basquin’s equation
• For the entire range of fatigue life
• As shown in the previous figure:
– The fatigue life curve tends toward the plastic curve at
large total strain amplitudes and tends to the elastic
curve at small strain amplitudes
• Ductile materials give the best performance for
high cyclic strain conditions while strong
materials give the best results for low strain
situations
• The value of fatigue life at which this transition
occurs is:
 Structural features of fatigue
• Fatigue process
– Crack initiation
– Slip-band crack growth
– Crack growth on planes of high tensile stress
– Ultimate ductile failure
• Fatigue crack usually are initiated at a free surface
• On rare instances, fatigue crack initiates in the
interior and always an interface is involved:
– Carburized surface layer and the base metal
• In fatigue, some grains will show slip lines while
others will not
• Slip lines are formed during the first thousands
cycles of stress
• Successive cycles produce additional slip bands
but the number of slip bands is not directly
proportional to the number of cycles of stress
• Cracks are observed in the region of heavy
deformation parallel to the original slip band
• Slip band have been observed at stresses below the
fatigue limit
• Therefore, the occurrence of slip during fatigue does
not itself mean that a crack will form
• Slip bands can be observed after 5% of the total fatigue
life
• These persistent slip bands are embryonic fatigue
cracks since they open into wide crack on the
application of small tensile stress
• Once formed, fatigue cracks tends to
propagate initially along slip planes, although
they later take a direction normal to the max.
applied tensile stress
• Fatigue- crack propagation is transgranular
• Structural unique features of fatigue:
– Slip-band extrusions
– Slip-band intrusions
 Fatigue propagation rate
• Fatigue propagation rate da/dN

• Power low expression from elastic to plastic

strain
• is the range of the stress intensity factor
defined as:

• Since the stress intensity factor is undefined in

compression, Kmin is taken as zero if
is compression
Effect of stress concentration on
fatigue
• is the fatigue-strength reduction factor, or
fatigue-notch factor
• Another approach to notch sensitivity
 Size effect
• The fatigue strength of large members is lower
that of small specimens
Surface effects
Surface residual stress
 Cumulative damage and sequence
effects
• Situation for the cyclic stress is not constant
• Overstressing
• Miner’s rule
 Effects on metallurgical variables on
fatigue
• Fatigue properties are quite structure-
sensitive
• Limited ways to improve fatigue resistance by
metallurgy means
• Greatest way to improve fatigue resistance is:
– Design change that reduce stress concentration
– Use compressive residual stresses
• Fatigue properties related to tensile properties
• In general, the fatigue limit is approx. 50% the
ultimate tensile strength
• Fatigue limit/tensile strength = fatigue ratio
• Fatigue ratio of non-ferrous metals (nickel,
copper, magnesium) is about 0.35
• Fatigue ratio for notched specimens for steel is
around 0.20 to 0.30
• As yield strength increases by various
strengthening mechanism, the fatigue ratio
does not increase proportionally
• Most high strength materials are fatigue-
limited
• Solid solutions alloying on the fatigue parallels
their effect on the tensile strength
• High fatigue resistance can be achieved by
homogenizing slip deformation so that local
concentrations of plastic deformation are
avoided
• This is in agreement with the observation that
fatigue strength is directly proportional to the
difficulty of dislocation cross-slip
• Materials with high stacking-fault energy allow
dislocation to cross slip easily around
obstacles
• This promotes slip-band formation and large
plastic zones at the tip of the cracks
• Both of these promote the initiation and
propagation of fatigue cracks
• In material with low stacking fault energy,
cross slip is difficult
• Dislocation are constrained to move in a more
planar fashion
• This limits local concentrations of plastic
deformation and suppress fatigue damage
• Ability to control fatigue resistance by altering
stacking-fault energy is practically limited
• Good approach is to increase fatigue
resistance by controlling the microstructure of
the material
– Through thermomechanical processing
• This promote homogeneous slip with many small
regions of plastic deformation as opposed to a smaller
number of regions of extensive slip
• Dependence of grain size on fatigue is a function
of the deformation mode
• Grain size has its greatest effect on fatigue life:
– Low-stress, high cycle regime in which stage I cracking
dominates
• In high stacking fault energy materials (aluminium
and copper), cell structures develop and these
control Stage I crack propagation
– The dislocations cell structure masks the influence of
the grain size
• In low stacking fault energy materials (alpha
brass)
– Absence of cell structure because of planar slip
causes the GB to control the rate of cracking
– Fatigue is proportional to
• Quenched and tempered microstructures
result in high fatigue resistance in heat treated
low alloy steel
 Design for fatigue
• Infinite-life design: Keep the stress at some
fraction of the fatigue limit of steel
• Safe-life design: Based on the assumption that
the part is free of flaw and has a finite life in
which to develop a critical crack
• Fail-safe design: Fatigue crack will not lead to
failure before they can be detected and repaired
• Damage-tolerant design: Extension of fail-safe
design. Whether the crack will grow to cause
failure (success depends on a reliable NDE)
 Corrosion fatigue
• Simultaneous action of cyclic stress and chemical
attack
• Corrosion attack without superimposed stress
produces pitting of metal surfaces
• Pits act as notches and produce a reduction in
fatigue strength
• However , when the corrosive attacks
simultaneously with fatigue loading
– High reduction in fatigue properties greater than that
produced by prior corrosion at the surface
• Chemical attack accelerates the rate which
fatigue cracks propagate
• Slow crack growth is eliminated
• Small cracks grow quickly into large crack
• 50% of Reduction in fatigue life can be
expected
 Fretting
• When 2 surfaces are in contact with light
periodic relative motion
• More related to wear than fatigue
• Fatigue because of the relative motion
• Found at the surface of a shaft with a press-
fitted hub or bearing
• Combination of mechanical and chemical
effects
 Effect of temperature on fatigue
• Low-temperature fatigue
– Fatigue strength increases with decreasing
temperature
• High-Temperature Fatigue
– Fatigue strength decreases with increasing
temperatures
– Exception is mild steel
• As the temperature increases, creep will become
important and high temperatures (> 0.5TM) will
be the principal cause of failure
• The transition from fatigue failure to creep
failure with increasing temperature will result
in a change in the type of failure from the
usual transcrystalline fatigue failure to the
intercrystalline creep failure.
• Local grain-boundary oxidation can contribute
significantly to crack initiation
• At any given temperature the amount of creep
will increase with increasing mean stress
 Thermal fatigue
• The stress which produce fatigue failure at
high temperature do not necessary need to
come from mechanical sources.
• Thermal stresses result when the change in
dimensions of a member as a result of a
temperature change is prevented by some
kind of constraint
• For a bar with fixed end supports, the thermal
stress is expressed by
• If failure occurs by application of thermal
stress, the condition is called thermal shock

• However, if failure occurs after repeated

applications of thermal stress, of a lower
magnitude, it is called thermal fatigue