doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2695.2006.01041.

High-temperature fatigue crack growth in Inconel 718 subjected

to high strain amplitudes
M. ANDERSSON 1 , C. PERSSON 1 and S. MELIN 2
1 Division of Materials Engineering, 2 Division of Mechanics, Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden

Received in final form 2 May 2006

A B S T R A C T Fatigue crack growth experiments in Inconel 718 subjected to high strain amplitudes
at 650 C have been conducted. In the study the effects of load amplitude, ratio and
frequency have been investigated. It was found that crack growth is a mixture of cyclic
and time dependent mechanisms, depending on the load frequency. The load frequency
was also found to have a strong influence on the crack growth rate. Also, crack closure was
found to play an important role. By using an effective J-integral and including a frequency
compensation term it was possible to summarize crack growth data into an empirical life
prediction law, which seems to be in reasonable agreement with data from other studies.

Keywords crack closure; frequency effects; high strain fatigue.

NOMENCLATURE a = crack depth

A L = uncracked cross-section area
B = specimen thickness
c = half crack width
E = elastic modulus
G = energy release rate range
J = J-integral range
J eff = effective J-integral range
K = stress intensity range
K eff = effective stress intensity range
L = specimen gage length
PD = potential drop value
P = applied force
R = load ratio
U = effective part of the load cycle
U e = elastic strain energy
U p = plastic strain energy
U = total strain energy
U  = area under the load displacement curve
V = global displacement
W = specimen width
= dimensionless function to calculate J
= global strain
min = minimum global strain
max = maximum global strain
op = global strain at crack opening

Correspondence: M. Andersson. E-mail: michael np andersson@yahoo.se


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875 863
864 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.

 = global strain range

= global stress
op = global stress at crack opening
 = global stress range
= Poisson ratio

INTRODUCTION adopted to handle gross plastic deformation during crack

growth as well as crack closure effects. Also, the frequency
Many engineering applications, such as gas turbines, con- effects is investigated and included in a life prediction
tain components that are subjected to high temperatures model for high-temperature fatigue crack growth. The ef-
as well as cyclic fatigue loading. Reliable life predictions fects of environment are not considered in this paper, but
for such components are essential to guarantee the in- the experiments are carried out in laboratory air.
tegrity of the structure. However, fatigue processes tak-
ing place at high temperatures often add extra difficulties
to the prediction of fatigue lives. Time dependent mech- E X P E R I M E N TA L S E T U P
anisms such as creep and grain boundary cracking may A schematic view of the experimental setup is shown in
be triggered, giving the frequency dependence of crack Fig. 1. The specimen is mounted between two water-
growth often observed. Also, at higher temperatures the cooled high-temperature grips with rods extending into a
material often suffers from a decrease in yield strength split furnace, as shown in the figure. The experiments were
along with an increase in ductility, which may limit the carried out in a servo hydraulic testing machine consisting
use of linear elastic fracture mechanics, adding to the dif- of a MTS load-frame and an Instron 8500+ control unit.
ficulty of fatigue life predictions.
Even though linear elastic fracture mechanics has some-
times been successful in describing fatigue crack growth load
under conditions with a high degree of plastic defor-
mation, such as in Ref. [1] it is not believed to be
generally applicable to these situations. Instead an alterna-
tive approach must be adopted. The most often used pa-
rameter to characterize fatigue crack growth under large
load
scale yielding conditions is the cyclic J-integral, J, cf. I=10 A cell
for instance Refs [26] which takes inelastic deformation
into account. Alternatively, a strain intensity approach has water cooled grip
sometimes been used,4,68 which partly accounts for in-
elastic deformation by replacing stress range by strain
range in the expressions for the stress intensity factors.
All these relations have been used in combination with
some crack closure correction to improve the predictive
capabilities of the models.
Time dependent crack growth in materials such as In- extensometer
conel 718 is often attributed to diffusion of oxygen along PD
Ampl.
grain boundaries, giving both a frequency dependence and PDref
sensitivity to the testing environment, cf. Refs [912]. The
oxygen diffusing along the grain boundaries is believed to
either form oxides or cause dynamic embrittlement.11
In this paper, fatigue crack propagation in a common
split furnace
nickel-base superalloy, Inconel 718, is studied experimen-
tally. Isothermal crack propagation experiments with high
load amplitudes were performed at 650 C on semicircular water cooled grip
cracks in specimens with rectangular cross-section. The I=10 A
crack depth was in the range 0.52.5 mm and the load
amplitudes near or above the nominal yield strength of
the material, giving a plastic zone comparable to the crack
load
length making the cracks what is often denoted mechan-
ically short. A nonlinear fracture mechanics approach is Fig. 1 Schematic view of the experimental setup.


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875

B=4.30 mm
a
Fig. 2 (a) Schematic view of the specimen
cross section and (b) photograph of the
crack plane of a fractured specimen.
Table 1 Overview of the experiments and crack opening levels
Specimen  (%) R = min / max f (Hz)
1 1.001 1 0.5
2 0.75 1 0.5
3 0.75 1 0.5
4 0.50 1 0.5
5 0.50 0 0.5
6 0.75 0.5 0.5
7 0.75 1 0.05
8 1.0 1 0.01
9 (0.75) (1) 5 op = 319 MPa
Specimens were so called KB-specimens with rectangular
cross section, W = 10.2 mm and B = 4.3 mm, as shown in
Fig. 2. All testing was performed at a constant temperature
of 650 C, this temperature is in the upper portion of the
range of application for this material.13 This temperature
was chosen to promote fatigue-creep interactions. All the
experiments, except one, were run in displacement control
with a constant nominal strain prescribed, using a high-
temperature extensometer as seen in Fig. 1. An overview
of the experiments is shown in Table 1, with the cycle
shape triangular for all cases. Specimen 9 was run in force
control because the extensometer cannot be used at fre-
quencies as high as 5 Hz. The load amplitude was chosen
to match the measured force for specimens 2 and 3 after
the initial cyclic softening. As seen in the table frequen-
cies range from 0.01 Hz up to 5 Hz which is expected to
give large differences in the relative amount of fatigue and
creep crack growth. Because the strain amplitude (or stress
amplitude for specimen 9) was kept constant throughout
the experiment, the crack tip load, stress intensity range or
cyclic J-integral increased with increasing crack length.
A small 150 75 75 m starter notch was spark ma-
chined into the specimen surface to act as an initiation
point for the crack. Before the high-temperature testing
was started a crack was initiated at room temperature with
a load of approximately 50% of the yield stress. The ini-
tiation process was stopped when a semi-circular crack,
approximately 0.30.5 mm deep, had initiated. The crack
initiation process was monitored using the PD-signal, as

c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875
H I G H - T E M P E R AT U R E FAT I G U E C R AC K G R O W T H 865
a. b.
W=10.20 mm
c
op (%) Comment
0.18
0.0
0.0
0.0088
0.13
0.044
0.006
0.04
Load control,  = 1140 kN , R = 1
described below. In the following, a denotes crack depth
and c half the surface crack length, see Fig. 2. It can
be noted that the a/c-ratio was practically constant with
a/c 0.95 throughout the experiments.
Crack length during the experiments was monitored us-
ing an electric dc potential drop (PD) system where a con-
stant current, I = 10 A, was feed through the specimen
as illustrated in Fig. 1. Over the crack mouth two probes
were micro-welded to the specimen surface measuring the
electrical potential over the crack mouth. Also, a reference
PD measurement was taken at the back of the specimen,
relative to the crack. Because the signals are very small
they were both amplified before logging. The PD-value
value was then taken as PD = PD meas /PD ref , where sub-
script meas and ref denote potential difference over crack
mouth and reference length, respectively. A calibration
curve for crack length versus PD was adopted for each
specimen individually by measuring initial crack length
(i.e. after initiation) and residual crack length after frac-
ture, assuming a linear relationship between a and PD.
Experience shows that this is a valid assumption for crack
lengths up to about a = 2.5 mm. When the crack was
assumed to be between 2 and 2.5 mm in depth the exper-
iment was interrupted and the specimen fractured under
monotonically increasing load.
The furnace consists of three heating zones that can be
set independent of each other to obtain a uniform tem-
perature over the gage length of the specimen. To avoid
heat leakage at the insert of the grips into the furnace
866 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.

mineral wool was used as isolation between furnace and the stressstrain curves measured in the experiments. This
grip rods. Before the actual experiments were started, in- J-estimation scheme is based on the assumption that J can
strumented specimens identical to the test specimens were be expressed as:
used to calibrate the temperature. Three thermocouples U
were micro-welded to the surface of the specimen at the J= (3)
AL
top, centre and bottom of the guage length, respectively.
The furnace controllers were then adjusted until the metal where is a dimensionless function and A L the uncracked
temperature was 650 1 C at all three thermo couples. area of the cross-section. This is a valid assumption as
The temperature calibration was verified at two later oc- long as the specimen geometry can be characterized by a
casions showing repeatability in specimen mounting. All single geometrical parameter, cf. Refs [15,16]. U  is the
testing took place in laboratory air. area under the load-displacement curve calculated from
During the experiments an external logging system the experiment as:
consisting of a PC running LabView14 was used to contin-  V
uously record force, strain and PD. Due to the small vari- U = Pd V (4)
0
ations in PD during a load cycle as a consequence of crack
closure, se further details below, the PD value at maximum with P denoting the applied load and V the load line dis-
load was used to calculate crack length in each load cycle. placement. The function generally depends on specimen
Crack growth rate per cycle, da/dN , was determined by geometry and crack length.
first fitting a second-degree polynomial to crack length In analogy for cyclic loading J can be expressed as:
versus cycle number with an interval of 15 cycles before  Vmax
U
and after the point in question, thereafter differentiating J = = (P Pmin ) d V (5)
AL AL Vmin
the polynomial. The resulting da/dN-values were not
sensitive to the choice of the length of the interval chosen. where subscript min and max denotes the minimum and
maximum value of the quantity during a cycle. Further-
more J is often split into one elastic and one plastic part
Crack driving force according to:
Often the driving force exerted on a fatigue crack is ex- K I (1 2 )
pressed in terms of the stress intensity factor range, K. J = Jel + Jpl = + Jpl (6)
E
Stress intensity solutions are available for a range of ge-
ometries from handbooks. For the present geometry the where the elastic part is the elastic energy release rate for
solution found in Ref. [15] can be expressed as: plane strain from Eq. (2). For small scale yielding, i.e. the
  linear case, J pl = 0.
a a a It is now assumed that the factor for the specimens
K =  a g , , , (1)
B c W used in this study only depends on a/B with notation ac-
cording to Fig. 2. Generally is a function of both the
where  is the remote stress range, the angle from the
specimen cross-section ratio W/B, which is constant in
edge, as shown in Fig. 2a, and g a dimensionless function.
these experiments, and the crack shape a/c. Based on post-
In this case, g range between approximately 0.680.74, de-
fracture investigation of the crack surfaces it is noted that
pending on crack depth. Equivalently, the energy release
the changes of a/c are small and can be neglected in these
rate, G, can be used, which, for plane strain, is expressed
experiments.
as:
Now, if an experiment is performed under small-scale
K 2 (1 2 ) yielding conditions J p = 0 and from Eqs (5) and (6)
G = (2)
E can be calculated as:
 
with E denoting the elastic modulus and the Poisson a K I2 (1 2 ) AL
ratio. However, because K is an elastic parameter it is = (7)
B U E WB L
valid only as long as the plasticity is confined to a small
where the integral in Eq. (5) has been expressed in nominal
volume around the crack tip.
stresses and strains instead of forces and displacements.
A parameter that has sometimes been used to correlate
The length of the specimen, L, is the distance between
fatigue crack growth under high load amplitudes, with
the extensometer pins used to measure the nominal strain.
large plastic zones, is the cyclic J-integral, J.26 For
U is the area under the loading part of the global stress
some specimen geometries J-solutions can be found in
strain curve as illustrated in Fig. 3a, i.e.:
handbooks, but solutions are not generally available for
 max
all specimen geometries. In this paper, a simplified engi-
U = ( min ) d (8)
neering approach is taken to determine J directly from min


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 H I G H - T E M P E R AT U R E FAT I G U E C R AC K G R O W T H 867

600 600

400 400

200 200

U,eff

(MPa)

(MPa)
0 0
op

200 200

400 400

U
600 600
Fig. 3 (a) Illustration of the J calculations 0.5 0 0.5 0.5 0 0.5
and (b) J eff calculation. (%) (%)

It should be noted that the stress intensity factor given by

Eq. (1) is in practice constant along the crack front for the
current geometry. The uncracked area in the crack plane
is:
a 2 c
AL = WB (9)
2 a
With this notation J is given by:
WB LU
J = (10)
AL
To calibrate the -function it was noted that specimen
4 behaved linear on the global scale. Also, evaluating Eq.
(8) for a complete cycle, i.e. loading + unloading, for this
specimen gave U 0, showing that J pl 0. Thus
for another crack length could be calibrated from this
Fig. 4 The -factor as a function of relative crack length.
specimen using Eq. (7). The integration of Eq. (8) is per-
formed numerically directly from the experimental stress
strain curve by using a trapezoidal integration scheme be- In analogy an effective J-integral can be defined as in
tween the measured points. In Fig. 4 the resulting -factor Ref. [2]. This is done by modifying the above equations
is shown for different crack lengths. Based on this cali- according to:
bration curve J could then easily be calculated for the
WB LU,eff
inelastic specimens using Eqs (910). Jeff = (13)
AL
In order to compensate for crack closure an effective K  max
based on Elbers definition,17,18 is used:
U,eff = ( op ) d (14)
op
K eff = (max op ) a g (11)
see illustration in Fig. 3b. To be consistent with the defi-
where subscript op denote the corresponding quantity at
nition of U in Eq. (12) U is defined as:
the point of crack opening. Based on this definition the

effective part of the load cycle, U, is expressed as: Jeff
U= (15)
K eff J
U= (12)
K because J K 2 for the small-scale yielding case.


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875
868 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.
The procedure to determine J described above is in-
tended as an approximation to easily determine J for
the experiments in this study. Also, the calculated -factor
holds for the current geometry but not necessarily for
specimens with other dimensions. The main advantage of
this method is that the calibration makes the method di-
rectly connected to the given specimen geometry and that
the nonlinear material behaviour is directly accounted for
by the integration of the experimental stressstrain curves.
To verify the results from the J calculations a compar-
ison between J and G is made in Fig. 5 for two dif-
ferent specimens, one with an initially linear behaviour,
specimen 5, corresponding to the lower three curves, and
one with gross plastic deformation from the start, spec-
imen 3, the upper three curves. It is obvious that in the
linear case J = G, and for the nonlinear case J >
G. This is expected and taken as an indication that the
method works.
In Ref. [3], Dowling developed another approximate J-
solution for semi-elliptical surface cracks. His solution is
based on the linear elastic solution for short cracks and a
plastic solution for a straight crack. Also, the crack should
be much shorter than the cross-section dimensions. The
solution obtained in Ref. [3] can be written as:
J = (3.2Ue + 5.0Up ) a
where U e and U p denotes the elastic and plastic area un-
der the stressstrain curve, respectively. The constants in
Eq. (16) are dependent on the cyclic hardening exponent
and were derived for a hardening exponent of 1.17. This
4
x 10
6
J
G
Dowling [16]
5
4
J, G (J/m2)
1
0
0 0.5 1 1.5
a (mm)
value is in agreement with the material in this study. The
results from Eq. (16) for specimens 3 and 5 in this study
have been added in Fig. 5. From the figure it is apparent
that Eq. (16) generally provides somewhat higher J val-
ues than Eq. (10). For the linear case it is also seen that J
from Eq. (10) is higher than G. It should be noted that
the J derivation in Ref. [3] was based on rather crude
assumptions and for the rest of this paper Eq. (10) will be
used to determine J.
R E S U LT S A N D D I S C U S S I O N
Crack closure
To calculate J eff from K eff through Eqs (1113) the
point of crack opening must be known. Often the change
in compliance for the test specimens during loading is
used to measure crack opening, cf. Ref. [19]. However,
for experiments such as those in this study it is often dif-
ficult to distinguish changes in compliance due to clo-
sure from inelastic deformation, see Fig. 3. The potential
drop technique, in this study also used for measuring crack
length, provides another possibility to detect the point of
crack opening, cf Ref. [20] because the electrical poten-
tial changes during loading due to the gradual change in
(16) closed crack length. A typical recorded PD-curve is shown
in Fig. 6, where the PD value is plotted against the global
strain. At about = 0 for this specimen it is seen that
the PD-curve reaches a plateau, which coincides with the
point of crack opening. Further discussions on the appli-
cation of the method can be found in Ref. [19].
specimen 5
specimen 3 Fig. 5 Comparison between different
methods to determine J. Upper three
curves are for specimen 5 with gross plastic
2 2.5 deformation, and lower three curves for
specimen 3 with little plastic deformation.

c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875

1.025
1.02
1.015
PD ( )
1.01
1.005
Fig. 6 Variations in PD during the loading
part of the load cycle as a function of the
applied global strain, the arrow indicates
1
crack opening. This curve is from 0.4
specimen 2.
One question that can be raised regarding these clo-
sure measurements for the crack geometry in question is
whether crack opening takes place simultaneously along
the crack front or if there is a 3D effect. It would be ex-
pected that crack closure is more pronounced at the speci-
men surface than in the centre due to the possibility of ma-
terial transport from the surface to the crack tip.21 Finite
element simulations of crack closure of semi-elliptical sur-
face cracks have confirmed this behaviour.22 Their study
showed that closure occurs also at the centre of the crack
front and for R = 1 crack opening was found to take
place almost simultaneously along the crack front. For R =
0 they found that the crack opened at the surface last,
but the surface zone was small compared to the length
of the crack front. With this in mind the closure mea-
surements taken from the PD-curves is regarded to be
representative for the overall crack closure behaviour and
the technique is used to detect crack opening in this
study.
When measuring closure for different crack lengths it
was found that for approximately a < 0.7 mm closure could
not be distinguished from noise in the measurements. For
longer cracks it was found that the strain at crack opening
was practically constant, independent of crack length. In
an earlier paper,8 it was shown that the point of crack open-
ing for a similar specimen geometry was constant down
to a 0.3 mm, and thus the opening point is assumed to
be constant for all crack lengths studied here. It should
be noted that for specimen 8 the opening measurements
are uncertain because crack growth per cycle was so high
that no distinct plateau could be detected. In Table 1, a

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H I G H - T E M P E R AT U R E FAT I G U E C R AC K G R O W T H 869
0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
(%)
summary of the measured opening strains are presented,
for specimen 9 opening stress is given.
In contrast to the opening strain the effective part of
the load cycle, U, as given by Eq. (15), was not constant
with crack length. U was found to decrease slightly as the
crack grew. In Fig. 7, U is plotted against J. It is clearly
seen that U decreases with increasing J. Notable in the
figure is also that a higher R-ratio gives less closure, i.e.
a higher U, which is usually the case. However, some-
times during high strain fatigue, especially if the material
is weakly hardening, a change in R does not necessarily
affect the crack closure levels because the stress ratio R =
min / max is not changed, cf. Ref. [8]. In Fig. 7, it is also
seen that the two specimens with highest load amplitude,
numbers 1 and 8 with  = 1.0%, display less crack clo-
sure than the other specimens with R = 1. Specimen
1 displayed closure levels in the order of the ones mea-
sured for specimen 6 with R = 0.5. For specimen 8,
closure levels were found to lie in between specimen 1
and the other R = 1 specimens. However, closure mea-
surements for this specimen are somewhat uncertain as
discussed above. In Ref. [8], this behaviour was shown
to depend on the increased crack tip opening at higher
load amplitudes. The difference in closure between  =
0.50% and  = 0.75% was found to be negligible as seen
in the figure.
The effect of frequency on crack closure is less clear.
Specimen 9 with f = 5 Hz, exhibited less closure than
specimens 24 with f = 0.5 Hz, but there was no differ-
ence between 0.5 Hz and 0.05 Hz (specimen7). Also, more
closure was seen for specimen 8, with f = 0.01 Hz, than
870 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.

0.8
1; =1.0%, f=0.5 Hz, R=1
24; =0.5%, 0.75%, f=0.5 Hz, R=1
5; =0.5%, f=0.5 Hz, R=0
0.75
6; =0.75%, f=0.5 Hz, R= 0.5
7; =0.75%, f=0.05 Hz, R=1
8; =1.0%, f=0.01 Hz, R=1
0.7 9; =1140 MPa, f=5 Hz, R=1

0.65
UJ=(Jeff/J)

0.6

0.55

0.5

0.45

0.4
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 Fig. 7 The effective part of the load cycle as
2
J (J/m ) x 10
4
a function of J.
1 1
10 10
1 1
2, 3 2, 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
2 8 2 8
10 9 10 9
da/dN (mm/cycle)

da/dN (mm/cycle)

3 3
10 10

4 4
10 10

20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 Fig. 8 Crack growth rate as a function of (a)

K (MPam) K (MPam)
eff K and (b) K eff .

for specimen 1, f = 0.5 Hz. A difference in crack closure This behaviour is not surprising because the elastic stress
levels may to some extent be attributed to differences in intensity factor not is expected to describe the deformation
crack growth mechanisms. However, this effect is not fully of the material at high inelastic load amplitudes. In Fig. 8b
understood at this point. crack closure is taken into account by using K eff , and
some of the curves collapse. It is seen in the figure that
Crack growth
K eff manages to compensate for the R-ratio effect for
In Fig. 8a da/dN is plotted against the stress intensity the samples with little global plastic deformation, but for
range, given by Eq. (1), for all specimens. From the figure specimens subjected to higher load amplitudes there is
it is clear that there is no correlation between K and still a large difference in crack growth rates for the same
da/dN , the difference in growth rate for the same nominal K eff . Also, there is a strong frequency dependence of the
K is almost a factor 10 between some of the specimens. crack growth rate.


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 H I G H - T E M P E R AT U R E FAT I G U E C R AC K G R O W T H 871

1 1
10 10
1 1
2, 3 2, 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
2 8 2 8
10 10

da/dN (mm/cycle)

da/dN (mm/cycle)
3 3
10 10

4 4
10 10

5 5
10 3 4 5
10 2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Fig. 9 Crack growth rate as a function of (a)
J (J/m2) J (J/m2)
J and (b) J eff . eff

To account for the nonlinear deformation the cyclic
J-integral given by Eq. (10) was used. It should be noted
that for this analysis specimen 9 was not included because
J could not be calculated as was not measured, as men-
tioned above. In Fig. 9a and b da/dN is plotted against J
and J eff , respectively. In Fig. 9a there is still a R-ratio
dependence but by compensating for crack closure the
da/dN -curves for specimens subjected to 0.5 Hz loading
are practically collapsed. A small difference is observed
between specimens 1 and 6 at the upper end of the da/dN -
curves. The difference at this point cannot be explained
but is small as compared to the scatter between the curves
in Figs. 8 and 9b, and could be due to scatter in the mea-
surements.
It should be noted that using J on specimens exhibiting
a combination of time independent plasticity and creep
deformation is not obvious because J is not intended for
creep deformation. However, it is of interest to investigate
if such a parameter can be used to account for fatigue crack
growth under a broad range of different situations such as
in this paper.
Effect of frequency
Even though the effective J-integral managed to collapse
data for different load amplitudes and R-ratios as is seen
in Fig. 9b, there is a strong frequency effect on the crack
growth rate that is not explained by J eff . This implies
a change in crack growth mechanism as the frequency
changes. It is commonly known, cf. for instance, Ref. [9]
that at higher load frequencies crack growth in alloys such
as Inconel 718 is predominantly transgranular, changing
to an intergranular fracture mode for lower load frequen-
cies. In Fig. 10 scanning electron microscope images of
the fracture surfaces are shown for specimens 2, 7 and 9,
with crack lengths a 1.5 mm in all three images.
For specimen 9, Fig. 10a, loaded with f = 5 Hz, crack
growth is entirely transgranular with striations forming on
the crack surface. At f = 0.5 Hz, Fig. 10b, striations are
still formed but another growth mechanism, with inter-
granular cracking, is also observed. For frequencies lower
than 0.5 Hz, Fig. 10c, crack growth was entirely intergran-
ular. The striation spacing was found to be close to crack
growth rate per cycle when striations dominated the crack
surface and somewhat lower than da/dN for a mixture of
growth mechanisms. Thus, one striation is created in each
load cycle for cyclic crack growth, and when grain bound-
ary cracking occurs, this adds to the total crack growth
rate.
Obviously, the load frequency influences the crack
growth mode, as expected. However, it was also ob-
served that the relative amount of striations on the crack
surface tended to increase for longer cracks for the 0.5
Hz samples, especially for specimen 1 where it was almost
no intergranular growth towards the end of the experi-
ment. This change in growth mechanism is thought to be
due to the rate at which the crack front advances. Because
intergranular cracking in Inconel 718 is associated with
diffusion of oxygen along the grain boundaries, cf. for in-
stance, Refs [912] if the cyclic crack growth is high, as is


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872 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.

Fig. 10 Crack surface at a 1.5 mm for

different frequencies; (a) f = 5 Hz, (b) f =
0.5 Hz and (c) f = 0.05 Hz.

1
10
=1.0%
=0.75%

2
10
da/dN (mm/cycle)

3
10

4 Fig. 11 Crack growth rate as function of

10
2
10
1
10
0
10 10
1
frequency at fixed crack length, a 1.5 mm,
f (Hz) R = 1.

the case at the end of the experiment for sample 1, there
is no time for weakening of grain boundaries and, thus,
cyclic growth dominates.
To study the frequency effect, the crack growth rate as
a function of frequency is plotted in Fig. 11 on a loglog
scale, for cracks with a 1.5 mm and R = 1. Group-
ing the data according to load amplitude it is seen that
da/dN f , where is a constant, at otherwise identical
conditions. By combining the data for  = 0.75% and
 = 1.0% it was found that 0.34. Furthermore,
the same -value was found for other crack lengths. Crack
growth laws where da/dN f are sometimes suggested
in the literature, for instance in, Ref. [12] and it has been
argued that if diffusion is governing the time-dependent
mechanisms, = 0.5 because the rate of diffusion is
proportional to t, where t denotes time. While studies
such as Ref. [12] have given 0.5, others suggest =
0.40, as in Ref. [23] and in the present study we obtain
= 0.34. Obviously, the interaction between cyclic and
time-dependent mechanisms is complex and is, for the
time being, viewed at as an empirical fitting parameter.
It can be expected that for higher frequencies the fre-
quency dependence might disappear, and that only cyclic
crack growth occurs. Thus it can be expected that there
is an upper limit for the da/dN f relation. This upper
limit has not been the subject of this work.


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875
 H I G H - T E M P E R AT U R E FAT I G U E C R AC K G R O W T H 873

2
10

(f/f0) da/dN (mm/cycle)

3
10

4
10

Fig. 12 Frequency compensated crack 3 4

10 10
growth plotted against J eff . Solid line 2
Jeff (J/m )
corresponds to Eq. (19).

Life predictions Table 2 Overview of the experiments used to compare the crack
growth predictions
Based on the observation that J eff collapsed the da/dN -
curves for f = 0.5 Hz, as seen in Fig. 11, and that da/dN Specimen
f 0.34 as seen in Fig. 11, it seems reasonable to use a Number Ref. type R-ratio Heat treatment
crack growth law on the form:
  A [9] CT Not stated Conventionally aged
da f B [9] CT Not stated Over-aged
= f1 (Jeff ) (17)
dN f0 C [12] SENT 0.05 FGS
D [12] SENT 0.05 LGS
where f 0 is an arbitrary reference frequency, in this case E [10] CT 0.1 Not stated
taken as f 0 = 0.5 Hz, and f 1 a function of J eff and in
this case we have = 0.34. In Fig. 12 (f/f 0 )0.34 da/dN
is plotted against J eff , showing a reasonable agreement
To investigate the validity of Eq. (19) the prediction of
with Eq. (17), though there are some discrepancies for
crack growth rates were tested against data found in the
specimen 6, the lower curve in Fig. 12, at very high J eff .
literature. da/dN -curves for Inconel 718 at 650 C were
For simplicity it is assumed that the crack growth law can
found in Refs [9,10,12] for different load frequencies and
be written on the well-known Paris law form with a fre-
specimen geometries. For comparison it was assumed that
quency compensation, i.e.:
a Paris law type of relation could be used to describe crack
 
da f growth rates, and the constants C and m were manually
=C (Jeff )m (18) fitted to the da/dN -curves found in Refs [9,10,12]. In two
dN f0
of the used papers, Refs [9,12 different heat treatments
where C and m are constants. From Fig. 12, it is clear were compared, and are here included in the comparison.
that there is a slight curvature to the da/dN -curve on a A summary of the load cases used for the comparison is
loglog scale. However, for a basic comparison Eq. (18) found in Table 2. Compact tension specimens were used in
will suffice. By making a least-square fit to the data the Refs [9,10] and single edge notched specimens in Ref. [12].
following crack growth relation is obtained: The R-ratios were 0.05 and 0.1 in Refs [12 and 10] respec-
  tively, whereas not stated in Ref. [9]. The different heat
da f 0.34
= 2.15 109 (Jeff )1.57 (19) treatments were conventionally respectively over-aged in
dN 0.5
Ref. [9] and fine grain size (FGS) and large grain size
where da/dN is given in mm/cycle, f in Hz and J eff in (LGS) in Ref. [12].
J/m2 . The line corresponding to Eq. (19) is drawn as a The K values in the references were converted to J
solid line in Fig. 12. using Eq. (2) and assuming G = J. Because crack


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875
874 M . A N D E R S S O N et al.

a., f=0.01 Hz b., f=0.05 Hz

2
10
da/dN (mm/cycle)

da/dN (mm/cycle)
D 3
10

A 4
10
B E
3 4 3 4
10 10 10 10
J, Jeff (J/m2) J, Jeff (J/m2)
c., f=0.1 Hz d., f=1.0 Hz

2
2 10
10
da/dN (mm/cycle)

da/dN (mm/cycle)
3
10

C 4
4
10
10 D
Fig. 13 Crack growth rates for specimens
A
A
B
AE and predicted crack growth rates from
B
3 4 3 4
Eq. (19) for different load frequencies. Solid
10 10 10 10
2 2 line is Eq. (19). A and B from Ref. [9], C and
J, Jeff (J/m ) J, Jeff (J/m )
D from Ref. [12] and E from Ref. [10].

closure was not investigated in either of the references could, in part, also be due to crack closure levels changing
only nominal growth date were used for the comparison, as the crack propagates.
and no attempt was made to correct the literature data for Given the fact that heat treatment has a profound effect
closure because such a correction would rely on guesswork on crack growth rate and that the literature data are not
of closure levels. Because relatively low R-ratios were stud- compensated for crack closure it must be concluded that
ied it can be expected that J > J eff . the predicted crack growth rates from Eq. (19) are in rea-
In Fig. 13, a summary of the predicted crack growth sonable agreement with growth rates measured by other
rates from Eq. (19) are compared to the measured growth researchers on other geometries. Thus, a crack growth law
rates found in Refs [9,10,12] for four different frequen- as the one presented in Eq. (19) looks as a promising way
cies. Generally, it can be noted that the da/dN -curves to predict high-temperature fatigue crack growth under
from different studies differ at given frequency. For all a range of different conditions, including high load am-
compared frequencies Ref. [12] gave higher crack growth plitudes and different frequencies. However, further ver-
rates than in Ref. [9] Also, there is a difference between ification on similar material and with different specimen
specimens with different heat treatments, especially at low geometries and load ranges should be conducted.
frequencies, as seen when comparing growth rates be-
tween the two lines A and B and the two lines C and D in
CONCLUSIONS
Fig. 13.
Furthermore, comparing the predicted growth rates It has been found that high-temperature fatigue crack
from Eq. (19) with data A, B and E, it is observed that growth at high load amplitudes is strongly dependent on
for the same growth rate J for the literature data were load amplitude, R-ratio and frequency. Crack closure was
somewhat higher than J eff in the predictions. If the lit- found to have a significant influence on the crack growth
erature data were to be translated to coincide with the rate, and by applying the cyclic J-integral and compensat-
prediction line this would correspond to a U-value in the ing for crack closure da/dN -curves for different R-ratios
interval U = 0.60.8, which seems fully reasonable. The and load amplitudes could be collapsed. Also, by includ-
difference between the predicted growth rate and line D ing a frequency compensating factor an empirical crack
in Fig 13a cannot be explained by crack closure because growth law was proposed.
closure compensation would translate D even further to By comparing the herein stated growth law to literature
the left. data a reasonable correspondence was found. To further
The difference in slope between the da/dN -curves for investigate the use of such a crack growth law, more ex-
some frequencies seems in part be due to the material, periments on different geometries, and a broader range of
compare lines A and B for f = 0.1 Hz for instance, but frequencies and load levels are needed.


c 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Fatigue Fract Engng Mater Struct 29, 863875

Furthermore, crack growth was found to be a combi-
nation of cyclic growth, with striations forming on the
crack surface, and time-dependent, intergranular growth.
The relative amount of cyclic and time-dependent crack
growth is controlled by both the load frequency and the
cyclic crack growth rate.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. T. Hansson for in-
valuable comments regarding the experiments. We would
also like to thank The Swedish Gas Turbine Centre and
Volvo Aero Corporation for financing this project.
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