Fatigue

• Failure under cyclic or repeated stress

• Maximum value of which is lower than the
static stress required to cause fracture.
• It occurs in metals and non metals alike
• Generally characterized by local crack
propagation
 Mechanism Of fatigue
• Fatigue occurs because of:
• Crack initiation
• Crack propagation
• Final fracture
• After formation of fatigue crack the
operative mechanism is similar as crack
exist
• Firstly it is a concern with a mechanism of
damage which lead to the formation of
macro cracks
• The No. of cycles for this initiation process
may be either large or small as the fraction
of the total fatigue life
• In smooth specimen the initiation stage
may be range from less than 10% at high
stress to 90% for low stress
• Surface micro cracks grows in wards along
crystallographic planes on which the resolved
cyclic shear stress are large
• It grows by to and fro slip until it reaches a
sufficient length, then
• The element a head of its tip fracture.
• A micro crack initiated at a low stress may not
reach its depth for change over to stage II
• Macro cracks will not develop to grow
/propagate
• Fatigue crack generally initiate at surface
discontinuities or stress raise
• Fatigue damage from local plastic flow
• Generates high dislocation densities on
slip bands and lead to the formation of
• Small intrusion and extrusion
• This can be detected by optical or replica
electron microscopy
• The stress level at which crack initiate
may be below the elastic limit of the
material
• However, on a micro scale the local stress
may be much higher as a result of stress
concentration at discontinuities
• A fatigue cracks once initiated grows as a
result of plastic deformation at the tip of
the crack during tensile load application
• Fatigue crack will not grow under
compressive loading
• Stage I: Initially the crack grows slowly
along a slip band (highly dislocated
substructure)
• The length of stage I is usually small
• After some time crack is in stage II
• During which it grows normal to the tensile
axis.
 Cyclic Stress strain Curve
• Under strain control:
• Under Stress control:
 Fatigue Hardening of Metals
• In annealed material
• During the initial rapid hardening stage,
• Bundles of dislocations are produced
separated by largely dislocation free
regions
• With continued cycling the dislocation
densities with in the bundles increases
and the spacing of the bundles decrease
Strain control fatigue
• During the saturation stage
• Slip bands of inhomogeneous plastic
deformation are produced provided the
strain amplitude is sufficient
• These bands have a different dislocation
structure from the matrix
• Such slip bands are observed on the
polished surface
• These were termed as persistent slip band
(PSB)
• Intensive slip bans on PSB give rise to the
formation of intrusion and extrusion
• Crack may nucleate whenever
inhomogeneous slip is concentrated
 Fatigue Softening of metals
• Cold worked FCC metal e.g Cu
• The initial ragged (uneven) dislocation cell
structure, altered to
• Sharply defined cell structure
• Cyclic deformation result in high
concentration of point defect (vacancies)
• Therefore metals to recover by a climb
• Many precipitation hardened alloys are
also subjected to cyclic softening
• The precipitate in PSB being cut
repeatedly to revert in to solution
• Point defects over aged the age harden
able Al alloy
• The fatigue/endurance limit of such an
alloy can be relatively low.
Effect of Metallurgical Variables
• Structure sensitive
• Yield strength can be increased however
fatigue limit usually does not increase
proportionally
• Stacking Fault energy
• High stacking Fault energy: Cross slip
easily therefore promotes formation of slip
bands
• Large slip bands at the tip of crack
• This phenomena promotes the initiation
and propagation of fatigue crack
• Low Stacking fault energy: Suppress
fatigue damage
• Increase fatigue life through thermo
mechanical processing
• Homogeneous slip with many small
regions of plastic deformation as opposed
to a small no of extensive slip
 Quenched and tempered
microstructure
• Optimum fatigue properties
• Austempering better fatigue properties
than even quenched and tempered
• Few trace of decarburizing and also
surface drastically reduce the fatigue
properties
• Presence of intersitial solute atoms
increase the yield strength
• Additional increase due to strain aging
 Factors affecting fatigue crack
propagation
• Material thickness: Fatigue crack growth
rate increases with increase in specimen
thickness
• Frequency of loading; Small increase in
growth rate being possible at lower
frequencies
• Temperature: Low temperature is to
reduce the crack growth rate.
• The rate of crack propagation, is determined by
Young's Modulus
• - a measure of the elastic behaviour of the metal
and not simply by tensile strength.
• Alloying or heat treatment to increase the
strength of a metal has very little effect on
Young's Modulus
• Therefore very little effect on crack propagation
rates.
• Thus no benefit to be gained by using high
strength alloys if the design is fatigue limited.
 Corrosive Environment

• Corrosive environment is to reduce greatly

a material resistance to cyclic loading
• Very difficult to predict the fatigue life or
rate of crack propagation
• On the basis of data determined in air