Failure Analysis and Design

Module 4: High Cycle and Low Cycle

Fatigue
 Fatigue Failures
• FATIGUE FAILURES occur due to the application of fluctuating
stresses that are much lower than the stress required to cause failure
during a single application of stress.
• It has been estimated that fatigue contributes to approximately 90% of
all service failures due to mechanical causes.
• Fatigue is a problem that can affect any part or component that moves.
• Automobiles on roads, aircraft wings and fuselages, ships at sea,
nuclear reactors, jet engines, and land-based turbines are all subject to
fatigue failures
 Stress Cycles
There are three basic factors necessary to cause fatigue:
 a maximum tensile stress of sufficiently high value,
 a large enough variation or fluctuation in the applied stress,
 a sufficiently large number of cycles of the applied stress.
Schematic of R.R. Moore reversed bending fatigue machine
 High-Cycle Fatigue
• High-cycle fatigue involves a large number of cycles (N > 105 cycles)
and an elastically applied stress.
• High-cycle fatigue tests are usually carried out for 107 cycles and
sometimes 5 × 108 cycles for nonferrous metals.
• Although the applied stress is low enough to be elastic, plastic
deformation can take place at the crack tip.
• High-cycle fatigue data are usually presented as a plot of stress (S)
versus the number of cycles to failure (N).
• A log scale is normally used for the number of cycles.
• The value of the stress (S) can be the maximum stress (σmax), the
minimum stress (σmin), or the stress amplitude (σa).
• The S-N relationship is usually determined for a specified value of the
mean stress (σm) or one of the two ratios R or A.
• The fatigue life is the number of cycles to failure at a specified stress
• level
• fatigue strength is the stress at which failure does not occur at a
predetermined number of cycles.
• As the applied stress level is decreased, the number of cycles to failure
increases.
• Normally, the fatigue strength increases as the static tensile strength
increases. For example, high-strength steels heat treated to over 1380
MPa yield strengths have much higher fatigue strengths than aluminum
alloys with 480 Mpa yield strengths.
 Fatigue cracking
• Fatigue cracking can occur quite early in the service life of the
member by the formation of a small crack, generally at some point on
the external surface.
• The crack then propagates slowly through the material in a direction
roughly perpendicular to the main tensile axis.
• Ultimately, the cross-sectional area of the member is reduced to the
point that it can no longer carry the load, and the member fails in
tension.
• The portion of the fracture surface due to fatigue crack growth and the
portion finally cracked due to overload are clearly evident.
 Fatigue Crack Nucleation and Growth
• Fatigue cracks generally initiate in a highly stressed region of a
component subjected to cyclic stresses of sufficient magnitude.
• The crack propagates under the applied stress through the material until
complete fracture results.
• On the microscopic scale, the most important feature of the fatigue
process is the nucleation of one or more cracks under the influence of
reversed stresses that exceed the flow stress, followed by the
development of cracks at persistent slip bands or at grain boundaries.
• Subsequently, fatigue cracks propagate by a series of opening and
closing motions at the tip of the crack that produce, within the grains,
striations that are parallel to the crack front
 The process of fatigue consists of three stages
• Stage I: Initial fatigue damage leading to crack nucleation and crack
initiation
• Stage II: Progressive cyclic growth of a crack (crack propagation) until
the remaining uncracked cross section of a part becomes too weak to
sustain the loads imposed
• Stage III: Final, sudden fracture of the remaining cross section
• Stage III occurs during the last stress cycle when the cross section
cannot sustain the applied load.
• The final fracture is the result of a single overload, which can be a
brittle, ductile, or mixed-mode fracture
 Crack Initiation
• In general, fatigue cracks initiate and propagate in regions where the
• strain is most severe.
• Most fatigue cracks initiate and grow from structural defects.
• Under the action of cyclic loading, a plastic zone develops at the defect
tip.
• This zone of high deformation becomes an initiation site for a fatigue
crack.
• The crack propagates under the applied stress through the material until
complete fracture results.
• Fatigue cracks form at the point(s) of maximum local stress and
minimum local strength, usually at or near the surface of the part.
• The local stress pattern is determined by the shape of the part, including
such local features as surface and metallurgical imperfections that
concentrate macroscopic stress, and by the type and magnitude of the
loading
 Crack Initiation
• Strength is determined by the material itself, including all
discontinuities, anisotropies, and inhomogeneities present.
• Local surface imperfections, such as scratches, mars, burrs, and other
fabrication flaws, are the most obvious flaws at which fatigue cracks
start.
• Surface and subsurface material discontinuities in critical locations are
likely initiation sites.
• Inclusions of foreign material, hard precipitate particles, and crystal
discontinuities, such as grain boundaries and twin boundaries, are
examples of microscopic stress concentrators in the material matrix.
• Once a fatigue crack has been nucleated, its rate and direction of
growth are controlled by localized stresses and by the structure of the
material at the tip of the crack.
 Fatigue Crack Propagation
• Stage II crack growth occurs when the stage I crack changes direction
and propagates in a direction normal to the applied stress.
• The transition is from one or two shear planes in stage I to many
parallel plateaus separated by longitudinal ridges in stage II.
• The plateaus are usually normal to the direction of maximum tensile
stress.
• The stage II area shows a large number of approximately parallel
fatigue patches containing very fine fatigue striations that are not
resolved at the magnification used.
 Fatigue Crack Propagation
• Fine striations are typical in stage II but are usually seen only under
high magnification
• Crack growth proceeds by a continual process of crack sharpening
followed by blunting,
• Crack propagation during crack growth often produces a pattern of
fatigue striations with each striation representing one cycle of fatigue
• Although striations are indicative of fatigue, fatigue failures can occur
without the formation of striations.
 Fatigue Crack Propagation
• Striations are microstructural details that are best examined with a
scanning electron microscope and are not visible to the naked eye.
• In the roots of small fatigue crack notches, the local stress state is
triaxial (plane strain).
• This reduces the local apparent ductility of the material and helps
control the orientation of the crack as long as the crack is small.
• After a crack has nucleated and propagated to a larger size, it becomes
a macroscopic stress raiser and can be more influential than any stress
raiser already in the part.
• At this point, the crack tip will take over control of the fracture
direction.
• Subsequently, the orientation of the crack surface will depend on the
stress field at the crack tip and will often follow a series of void
coalescences in advance of the crack front.
 Fatigue Crack Propagation
• Early crack extension occurs under plane-strain conditions and gives a
typical fine grained, flat-faced surface that, when produced under
random loading or sequences of high and low stress amplitudes,
exhibits characteristic beach marks.
• Low-stress, high-cycle fatigue produces flat-faced (plane-strain)
fractures and surface appears fine grained and lightly polished near the
crack nucleation site, where the stress intensification is least, the
surface becomes progressively rougher and more fibrous as the crack
grows and the intensity of stress increases.
• On high-stress, low-cycle fatigue surfaces, found in certain areas of all
complete fatigue fractures, the surface is fibrous, rough, and more
typical of plane-stress loading conditions, where the general fracture
direction is at 45° to the main tensile load.
 Fatigue Crack Propagation
• In large structural components, the existence of a crack does not
necessarily imply imminent failure of the part.
• Significant structural life may remain in the cyclic growth of the crack
to a size at which a critical failure occurs.
• The growth or extension of a fatigue crack under cyclic loading is
principally controlled by maximum load and stress ratio.
• Additional factors influencing in crack growth includes environment,
frequency, temperature, grain direction, and other microstructural
factors.
 Final Fracture (Stage III)
• Ultimate failure occurs when the fatigue crack becomes long enough
that the remaining cross section can no longer support the applied
load.
• Final fracture occurs when the crack has grown to the critical size for
• overload failure.
• The size of the final fracture zone depends on the magnitude of the
loads, and its shape depends on the shape, size, and direction of
loading of the fractured part.
• The final fracture zone of a fatigue fracture surface is often fibrous,
resembling the fracture surfaces of impact or fracture toughness test
specimens of the same material.
 Final Fracture (Stage III)
• Two features of the final fracture zone aid in determining the origin of
fracture.
• First, fatigue usually originates at the surface, and therefore, the fatigue
origin is not included in the shear lip zones of the overload region.
• In tough materials, with thick or round sections, the final fracture zone
will consist of a fracture by two distinct modes: tensile fracture (plane
strain mode) extending from the fatigue zone and in the same plane, and
shear fracture (plane-stress mode) at 45° to the surface of the part
bordering the tensile fracture.
• In thin sheet metal pieces having sufficient toughness, final fracture
occurs somewhat differently. As the crack propagates from the fatigue
zone, the fracture plane rotates around an axis in the direction of crack
propagation until it forms an angle of approximately 45° with the
loading direction and the surface of the sheet. The fracture plane,
inclined 45° to the load direction, can occur on either a single-shear or a
double-shear plane,
 Final Fracture (Stage III)
• The second characteristic of a fast fracture zone is chevron marks that
point back to the origin of fracture.
• The macroscopic fracture appearance will depend on part geometry
type of loading, and stress level

(a) Single-shear plane. (b) Double shear plane.

 Final Fracture (Stage III)

Surface of a torsional fatigue fracture in an induction-hardened 1041

(1541) steel shaft. The shaft fractured after 450 h of endurance testing