530.

352 Materials Selection

Lecture #23 Fatigue Tuesday November 8th , 2005

Failure even at low Stresses

Failure often occurs even when:
applied

<

fracture

and

applied

<

yielding

90% of all mechanical failures are related to dynamic loading. Dynamic Loading -> Cyclic Stresses

Examples of Fatigue Failures

Plastic Tricycle:

Examples of Fatigue Failures

Door Stop:

Examples of Fatigue Failures

Railway Accidents:
Versailles 1842 first fatigue problem axial failure

Today
flaws in 10% of rails.

Types of Fatigue
Fatigue of uncracked components
No pre-cracks; initiation controlled fracture Examples : most small components: pins, gears, axles, ...

High cycle fatigue

fatigue

<

yield

; Nf > 10,000

Low cycle fatigue

fatigue

>

yield

; Nf < 10,000

Types of Fatigue:
Fatigue of cracked structures
Pre-cracks exist: propagation controls fracture Examples : most large components, particularly those containing welds: bridges, airplanes, ships, pressure vessels, ...

Cyclic Loading

Weight +

time -

Basic Fatigue Terminology:

+ 0 - = man e = (
n ap d mlitu e mx a

mx a man e
m in

time

m in

N = number of fatigue cycles Nf = number of cycles to failure

m i

mx a

+ = (

m in

)/2

)/2

mx a

High Cycle Fatigue

S-N Curves
Apply controlled applied < ~ 2/3 yield Stress is elastic on gross scale. Locally the metal deforms plastically.
Stress
50 40 30 10 0 105 106 107 108 109

Mild Steel
Fatigue limit

Al alloys

Nfailure

Low Cycle Fatigue

Apply controlled amounts of

total

total

elastic

plastic

Empirical Observations and Rules

Coffin-Manson Law Miners Rule

Coffin-Manson Law
For low cycle fatigue:

log
p l

ps la tic

Nfailure

1 /2

= Const.

y= y/E

~104

log Nfailure

Miners Rule
Rule of Accumulative damage:

N1 N2 N3

Ni Nfailure

=1
@ i

Fraction of life time @ i

The Fatigue Process

Crack initiation
early development of damage

Stage I crack growth

deepening of initial crack on shear planes

Stage II crack growth

growth of well defined crack on planes normal to maximum tensile stress

Ultimate Failure

Crack initiation
Cracks start at: Surfaces Inclusions Existing cracks
Alternate stresses -> slip bands -> surface rumpling

Crack Initiation:

Crack Growth

Striation indicating steps in crack advancement.

Propagation in Cracked Structures

ao ~ adetectible < acritical
Fast fracture

= ( a)1/2 da = A1 Km dN

log da/dN

K = Kmx - Km a in

ao -> acritical = FAILURE !!!

threshold

linear

log K

Real world comparisons:

Fast fracture threshold
linear

log da/dN

log K

Fracture surfaces:

Fracture Surfaces:
Initiation site

Fatigue cracking

Final fracture