fatigue zones

It shows the effect or two-way bending, because it was loaded in both directions. The unequal
size of the fatigue zones shows that the stress in one direction was greater than the stress in the
other.

Striations are on a much finer scale and show the position of the crack tip after each cycle.

Microscopically the crack grows in shear

Macroscopically the crack grows in tension

The fracture surface near the origin is usually smooth. The surface becomes rougher as the crack
increases in size.

Beach marks pattern indicate that the load is changed during service or the load is intermitent.

Microscopic and macroscopic examination reveal a beach mark pattern and striations.

If the applied bending moment is reversing and maintains the same magnitude in either direction, two
cracks of almost equal are identically developed from the origins located diametrically opposite to
each other and usually in the same transverse plane.

However, two cracks differ in length in case the bending moment is founde greater in one direction
than in the other.
Beach marks, striations and conchoidal marks indicate fatigue.

WHAT IS FATIGUE LOADING?

There are different types of fatigue loading. One type is zero-to-max-to zero, where a part which
is carrying no load is then subjected to a load, and later, the load is removed, so the part goes
back to the no-load condition. An example of this type of loading is a chain used to haul logs
behind a tractor. Another type of fatigue loading is a varying load superimposed on a constant
load.
 The suspension wires in a railroad bridge are an example of this type. The wires have a constant
static tensile load from the weight of the bridge, and an additional tensile load when a train is on
the bridge. The worst case of fatigue loading is the case known as fully-reversing load. One cycle
of this type of fatigue loading occurs when a tensile stress of some value is applied to an
unloaded part and then released, then a compressive stress of the same value is applied and
released.

A rotating shaft with a bending load applied to it is a good example of fully reversing load. In
order to visualize the fully-reversing nature of the load, picture the shaft in a fixed position (not
rotating) but subjected to an applied bending load (as shown here). The outermost fibers on the
shaft surface on the convex side of the deflection (upper surface in the picture) will be loaded in
tension (upper green arrows), and the fibers on the opposite side will be loaded in compression
(lower green arrows). Now, rotate the shaft 180° in its bearings, with the loads remaining the
same. The

shaft stress level is the same, but now the fibers which were loaded in compression before you
rotated it are now loaded in tension, and vice-versa.
A fatigue failure can be recognized from the appearance of the fracture surface, which shows a
smooth and polished surface that corresponds to the slow growth of crack, when the crack faces
smoothen out by constant rubbing against each other and a rough/granular region corresponds to
the stage of fast growth, after critical conditions is attained where member has failed in a ductile
manner when cross section was no longer able to carry the applied load.

The region of a fracture surface that formed during the crack propagation step may be results in
characteristic pattern of concentric rings spread over the smooth region of the fracture surface,
known as beach marks or striations, radiating outward from the point of initiation of the failure,
as shown in figure-8.7. Beach marks (also known as clamshell pattern) are macroscopic
dimensions and may be observed with the unaided eye. These markings are found for components
that experienced interruptions during the crack propagation stage.

Each beach mark band represents a period of time over which crack growth occurred. On the
other hand fatigue striations are microscopic in size and subject to observation with the electron
microscope (either TEM or SEM). The relatively widely spaced striations are caused by
variations in the stress amplitude during the life of the component.
The fracture face of rotating bending fatigue is characterized as exhibiting multiple fatigue

“Ratchet marks” initiating from the surface, oriented perpendicular to the neck surface tangent.

The areas between the ratchet marks sometimes have visible fatigue arrest marks (beach marks)
propagating from the surface toward the center of the neck.

Ratchet marks are the result of multiple fatigue initiation points. In some cases where fatiguing
initiates at a single point, fatigue arrest marks will be visible on the fracture face in a widened “tear
drop” pattern with the point being at the neck surface.

Fracture face of a neck that broke due to surface initiated rotating bending fatigue. Large arrows
highlight some of the fatigue ratchet marks. Small arrows highlight the fatigue arrest marks (beach
marks) and their direction of propagation.
Progression Marks
A shaft may be subjected to cyclic stresses due to three possible loading modes:
  Axial loading
 bending loading
 torsion

Ductile fracture:

Direction of crack changes to 45 degrees resulting in cup-cone fracture

It is well established that a fatigue crack tends to initiate at the plane of maximal shear stress due to a
slip band mechanism

Ductile to Brittle Transition (DBT) Temperature

Sinking of Titanic: Titanic was made up of steel which has low DBT temperature. On the day of
sinking, sea temperature was –2 degrees C which made the structure highly brittle and susceptible to
more damage

Most fatigue cracks grow:

 Across grain boundaries (trans crystalline)

 Along grain boundaries (intercrystalline)

 Depending on the material, load, and environmental conditions.

The ripples are called fatigue striations.

These striations are not the beach marks. Actually, one beach mark can contain thousands of
striations

Electron microscopic magnification between 1,000x and 50,000x must be used to view striations.

They may not be seen clearly because of substantial surface rubbing and pounding during repeated
loading. They are also difficult to find in high strength materials.

Often the fatigue crack region can be distinguished from the final fracture region by beach marks,
smoothness, and corrosion.
Fatigue cracks usually nucleate at the surface where stresses are highest and where corrosive
environment and changes in geometry exist.

Microscopic fatigue cracks usually nucleate and grow on planes of maximum shear.

Macroscopic fatigue cracks often grow in the plane of the maximum tensile stress.

It should be emphasized that beach marks are not always found in fatigue failure. A uniform load and
environmental history will give a fracture surface free from beach marks. Similarly, fast fracture will not
always give well defined chevrons or radial marks. Where these are less distinct, they can still
be made visible with the use of light projected from a very low angle to the fracture surface. The
shadows will enhance the contrast of the radial or chevron marks, making otherwise indistinct
markings clearly visible.

Finally, the presence of other interesting features such as shear lips, secondary crack, large voids or
inclusions should be noted. Shear lips are almost always observed in the final tensile overload region.
Secondary cracks are often associated with stress corrosion cracking and are found in the
vicinity of primary crack origin site.

Fracture surfaces normally contain certain distinctive markings which are helpful in identifying the
crack origin site in a fracture. Two common surface features which point back to a crack origin are
"chevron" marks and "radial" marks,

The herringbone pattern of the chevron points back to the crack origin as do the radial markings.
Generally, a more brittle fracture has more distinctive chevrons, though very brittle fractures can go
the other way.

Multiple fatigue crack initiation normally implies service stresses above the endurance limit.

Low nominal service stress but multiple fatigue crack initiation can only mean a stress riser which
raises the low nominal stresses above the endurance limit.

In this case the splines were designed without generous fillets and the result is a high stress
concentration at the point where the spline meets the shaft.
This is a common example of a design defect and one that should have been anticipated and
avoided.

Splined shaft with multiple fatigue crack initiation sites at service due to corrosive action of
 stress risers due to absence of fillets.

The final fracture area of this fatigue failure was less than 10% of the total fracture area,
indicating design stresses were suitably low.

Non-destructive inspection of the other blades gave no indication of additional fatigue cracks,
confirming the hypothesis that design stresses were suitably low. A single initiation sight
(see Fig. 3) was found at a small gouge on the surface of the fan which gave a
sufficient stress riser to initiate a fatigue crack. This was apparently introduced at the time of
manufacturing, as it was located at a position on the fan blade that was protected by sheathing.

Torsion cycle loading, the position of the normal and shear stresses.
Both the tensile and compressive stresses are 45° to the specimen axis and remain mutually
perpendicular.

One shear stress component is parallel with the specimen axis; the other is perpendicular to the
specimen axis.

Under a cyclic torsional load, fatigue crack has initiated from the surface of the centre of specimen
where subjected to maximum shear stress.

There are different types of fatigue mechanisms: thermal fatigue, high-cycle fatigue, low-cycle fatigue,
surface fatigue, bending fatigue, corrosion fatigue, torsional fatigue, and fretting fatigue.

Thermal Fatigue. Thermal cycling causes expansion and contraction, hence thermal
stress, if component is restrained.
Corrosion fatigue. Chemical reactions induce pits which act as stress raisers.
Corrosion also enhances crack propagation.

Mechanical fatigue due to fluctuating stresses

Creep fatigue due to cyclic loads at high temperatures
Fretting fatigue due to cyclic stresses together with the oscillation motion and frictional sliding
between surfaces.

When the fatigue crack initiation occurs, the local stress increases, and different states of stress exist
around the fatigue crack initiation, and local tensile stress on the 45° plane will exceed largely the
tensile strength of the alloys before the local shear stress reaches the shear strength of the alloy.
Thus, fracture takes place normal to the 45° tensile plane producing a typical torsional fracture
surface.

The crack propagation was always oriented at approximately 45° to the axis of the specimen. This
indicates that final fracture was the origin of the tensile stress normal to the 45° plane and not the
shear stress.
We can tell whether the fracture was slow or sudden by looking at the break. The rougher the texture,
the faster the break. If several regions of different texture are visible, we know the crack grew slowly,
and “sped up” as the crack became larger

Torsional Fatigue (Fatigue Fracture)

Unlike bending fatigue, torsional fatigue causes excessive twisting that weakens components.
Usually, you’ll see beach marks and ratchet marks at the fracture’s origin point. However, if torsional
fatigue occurs on a splined shaft, you’ll see that the fracture started at the base of each spline. Figure
3.36 shows a drive shaft damaged by torsional fatigue. As the splines continued to weaken, the metal
formed a star-shaped radial pattern, eventually breaking the shaft at the center.

Shaft failures due to bending are the result of a combination of tension and compression. The
appearance of the shaft makes sense: if we bent the shaft to breaking, the pattern would indicate the
direction it was bent. A rotational bending failure looks sort of similar to this in each direction.

Ratchet Marks When more than one fatigue fracture occurs, beach marks form and create a raised,
rough “ridge” between the origins of the fractures. This ridge is called a “ratchet mark.” In this figure,
you can see the ratchet mark between the first fracture, (Origin 1), and the second fracture, (Origin 2).
Figure 3.23.
Reverse Bending Fatigue (Fatigue Fracture) Reverse bending is a type of fatigue that breaks a
component in two directions, 180 degrees apart. Beach marks occur on each side of the fractured
area and move toward the center of the component. Figure 3.24.
Because ductile overload cracks start differently at the molecular level than brittle fractures, they
frequently have a 45° shear lip. The presence of a shear lip is another clue the fracture was ductile.

A rotating bending fatigue failure from a motor shaft. Notice the small instantaneous zone that shows
the shaft was lightly loaded at the time of failure.

A torsional fatigue failure resulting from a loose hub fit. Note the severe fretting (from looseness) and
the cracked shaft.

By tracing the progression marks backward, we can see the failure started at the corner of the
keyway. But, the instantaneous zone is tiny. This indicates the shaft was very lightly loaded at the
time of failure and further research is needed.

What Type of Load Caused Fatigue Failure

The face of a fatigue failure tells us both the type (bending, tension, torsion or a combination) and the
magnitude of the load. To understand the type of load, look at the direction of crack propagation. It is
always going to be perpendicular to the plane of maximum stress. The four examples in Figure
6 reflects four common fracture paths.

One Way Bending or Rotating Bending

Figure 6 brings up the question "what type of bending?" Was it one-way plane bending, like a leaf
spring or a diving board, or was it rotating bending, such as a motor shaft with a heavy belt load?

As seen in Figure 7, looking at the fracture face again tells us the type of load. Notice that "rotating
load" on the right causes the crack to grow in a non-uniform manner. In general, when the divider of
the instantaneous zone does not point to the origin, it shows there was a rotating bending involved in
the failure cause.

How Heavily was it Loaded

Fatigue failures almost always start on the outside of a shaft at a stress concentration, because the
local stress is increased. However, the instantaneous zone (IZ) carries the load in the instant before
the part breaks. By looking at the size of the IZ, you can tell the magnitude of the load on the
part. Figure 8shows a comparison between a lightly and a heavily loaded shaft for both plain bending
and rotational bending.

Figure 8

The Effects of Stress Concentration

If a part is relatively lightly stressed, the cracking will start at only one point and the result will look like
one of the examples above. However, if a shaft is more heavily loaded, then cracks can start in
several places and work their way across the part. In Figure 9 we see a sketch of a rotating shaft that
failed in only a few weeks. Inspecting it, you can see the instantaneous zone is very small, indicating
it wasn’t highly stressed. Also, the crack is straight across the shaft, showing the cause was a
bending load. But if the load was light, why did the shaft fail? The answer is stress concentrations.

Figure 9

Looking at the fracture face, you see a series of ratchet marks. These are the boundaries between
adjacent fracture planes, i.e., between each pair of ratchet marks is a fracture origin, and as these
individual cracks grow inward they eventually join together on a single plane. The small instantaneous
zone indicates the stress at the time when the shaft finally broke was low, but the multiple origins and
the ratchet marks show us there was enough stress to cause cracking at many points around the
perimeter almost simultaneously.

From this you can conclude that there must have been a significant stress concentration. (The
calculated stress concentration was in the range of 4.0, so the stress in the area of those origins was
four times as much as it should have been.)

With this information on the type of load and the magnitude of the load, we can start looking at some
failures and diagnosing where they came from.

In a brittle overload failure, separation of the two halves isn’t quite instantaneous, but proceeds at a
tremendous rate, nearly at the speed of sound in the material. The crack begins at the point of
maximum stress, then grows across by cleavage of the individual material grains. One of the results
of this is that the direction of the fracture path is frequently indicated by chevron marks that point
toward the origin of the failure.

The fatigue zone is typically much smoother than the instantaneous zone, which is usually brittle and
crystalline in appearance. Progression marks are an indication that the growth rate changed as the
crack grew across the shaft and don’t appear on many failure faces.

Machine components can fracture from either a single overload force or from fatigue forces. Looking
at the failure face will tell which of these was involved. A single overload can result in either a ductile
fracture or a brittle fracture.
The term "brittle fracture" is used when a part is overloaded and breaks with no visible distortion. This
can happen because the material is very brittle, such as gray cast iron or hardened steel, or when a
load is applied extremely rapidly to a normally ductile part. A severe shock load on the most ductile
piece can cause it to fracture like glass.

Like all brittle fractures, they are characterized by a relatively uniform surface roughness—the crack
travels at a constant rate, and surface features called “chevron marks” are evident.Photo 3 shows the
brittle fracture of the input shaft of a large reducer that was dropped. The “chevron marks” are the fine
ripples on the surface that all point just to the left of the keyway.

Words of caution on interpreting the clues

While the oldest part of a fatigue failure typically has the smoothest surface—at least 98% of the
time—it’s still crucial to look carefully at the failed part in the area of the origin: The shaft surface will
describe the force.
One of the greatest takeaways from this article is that a crack always grows perpendicular to the
plane of maximum stress. Many times, we’ve seen shafts where the originating force was torsion with
a short angular crack, but the majority of crack propagation was in bending—fooling inspectors into
thinking that bending was the primary force. Don’t let yourself be taken in this way.

No progression marks means the fatigue load was constant.

The instantaneous zone is relatively large, indicating the shaft was heavily loaded.

Cracking started at numerous locations around the shaft, pointing to rotating bending as the cause.

Rotating bending Fatigue Failure

Rotating bending is associated with ratchet marks and Torsional fatigue is also associated with
ratchet marks but, however, the difference is the following:

Closer examination of the many ratchet marks shows they are at a 45° angle to the centreline of the
shaft—a positive indication of torsional fatigue stresses with numerous origins. (Note that the ratchet
marks seen in Photo 5 have straight sides, an indication that they were caused by bending forces.)

The surface is smoothest near the root of the keyway and became progressively rougher as the crack
grew across the shaft. Numerous progression marks surrounding the tiny IZ and the change in
surface condition about 40% of the way across the shaft from the IZ suggest something changed
during the crack growth or that the elevator was not used for an extended period. These features are
indicative of a slow-growing failure—and the fact that fretting corrosion may have substantially
reduced the fatigue strength.

Torsional fatigue failures

While the most common torsional fatigue cracks start at the sharp corner (stress concentration) at the
bottom of the keyway when couplings are poorly fitted, another common appearance is the diagonal
shaft crack

Plane Bending Fatigue Failure

A valuable feature of fatigue-failure interpretation is that the crack growth, i.e., the surface appearance, tells how the

load was applied. If the crack grows straight across the shaft (as shown in Fig. 3), the force that caused the failure must have
been a bending load operating in a single plane.

Figures 4 and 5, however, show examples of rotating bending. The difference between these two failures is that the shaft in

Fig. 4 has a single origin, while the fracture in Fig. 5 has multiple origins. Looking at the two sketches, we see the IZ of Fig.

4 is the larger of the two—which indicates that the load on the shaft when it failed was greater than that on Fig. 5. The

analysis also shows that, even though Fig. 5 was less heavily loaded, it had many more fracture origins, an indication of a

high stress concentration, such as a shaft step with a very small radius. The ratchet marks are the planes between adjacent
crack origins and grow perpendicular to the crack propagation.
A typical plain bending fatigue failure is depicted in Fig. 3. The crack started at the origin and slowly grew across the

Fatigue Zone (FZ). When it reached the boundary of the Instantaneous Zone (IZ) the crack growth rate increased

tremendously and the crack travelled across the IZ at approximately 8000 ft/sec. During the period of growth across the FZ,

there may be changes in the loading on the shaft, which result in changes in the surface that appear as progression marks.
Beach marks indicate successive positions of the advancing crack front. The texture of the marks is usually
smooth near the origin and becomes rougher as the crack grows.

RATCHET MARKS (RADIAL STEPS)

Ratchet marks are the tell-tale sign of several individual cracks that ultimately merge to form a single crack.
Ratchet marks are present between the crack origins

The crack continues until there is very little shaft material left. At this point in time the shaft is overloaded as
evidenced by the high profile shear lip. The load in this location is not really torsional anymore, and the principal
direction of the stress has changed. It is more of a tearing action and less of a twisting action. The fact that the
shear lip is rough indicates brittle failure. This meant that the magnitude of stress was greater than the material
could handle, and therefore the failure occurred quickly. If the failure was due to a process upset that created a
torsional overload, the appearance of the roughened shear lip would be spread over a far greater portion of the
shaft surface. Production operators did not abuse this piece of equipment.
River patterns indicate direction of crack propagation.

Brittle fractures frequently have chevron marks pointing to the origin of the fracture, shown in Figure 3. The one

on the left is like the name implies, a series of chevrons. The chevron tips point to the origin of the fracture.

The chevron marks on the right are fan shaped ridges radiating from the origin.

he brittle fracture in Figure 4 occurred when a drive shaft suddenly stopped. The universal joint fractured,

creating the tell-tale chevron marks of a brittle fracture.

Figure 4: Brittle fracture of a universal joint with chevron marks pointing to the origin

Figure 9 shows the five types of forces that may be applied to a part:

Figure 9: Five types of forces that may be applied to a part

Chevrons or Herringbone Marks

Fractographic features common to metals and plastics are radial marks and chevron patterns.
Radial marks (Fig. 8) are lines on a fracture surface that radiate outward from the origin and are formed by
the intersection of brittle fractures propagating at different levels.
Chevron or herringbone patterns are actually radial marks resembling nested letter V’s and pointing
toward the origin.

Chevrons, or arrows, point to the origin of the crack.

Cracks start on a microscopic level as voids. If they are on the same plane they will eventually join to
become a tiny crack with a relatively smooth surface. If however these tiny cracks do not all lie on the
same plane, then as they get bigger and get closer to each other there will be a point when they will join
from a tearing action. Visually consider if you will, two columns of 10 dots each. Now start a crack at the
upper left dot and progress downward along the same column connecting the dots; at the same time start
a crack at the lower right dot and progress upwards, again, connecting the dots in the same column. You
can see that as the cracks approach each other there is less solid area between them. At some point,
depending upon the type of material it is, there will not be enough material left between them and the two
cracks will join. The location of this change in direction is known as a "chevron mark." On a very large
scale these chevron marks join and they clearly show to the naked eye the direction of travel of the crack.
This is very important when trying to determine where the crack started in the first place.

In a brittle overload failure, separation of the two halves isn’t quite instantaneous, but proceeds at a
tremendous rate, nearly at the speed of sound in the material. The crack begins at the point of maximum
stress, then grows across by cleavage of the individual material grains. One of the results of this is that the
direction of the fracture path is frequently indicated by chevron marks that point toward the origin of the
failure. Example 1 is a photograph of the input shaft of a reducer where the chevron marks clearly point
toward the failure origin, while Figure 3 is a sketch of the cross section of the wall of a ruptured 20ft. (6.1
m.) diameter vessel. In both cases, by tracing the chevron marks back to their origin, we knew exactly
where to take samples to determine if there was a metallurgical problem.

While Figure 3 is a sketch of the cross section of the wall of a ruptured 20ft. (6.1 m.) diameter vessel. In
both cases, by tracing the chevron marks back to their origin, we knew exactly where to take samples to
determine if there was a metallurgical problem.