A detailed study of short fatigue crack directions for carbon steel specimens with circular holes subject to cyclic biaxial loads

Abstract

The effect of notches and biaxial fatigue loading on the crack paths was studied in detail for thin-walled tube specimens with a passing-through hole, paying special attention to the short-crack period. The study was focused on the high cycle fatigue regime. The material was a carbon steel and the tests were under load control, at Rσ=−1. The crack initiation point on the notch surface and the crack direction were studied with an optical microscope on the specimen outer surface and with a scanning electron microscope and a non-contact 3D optical profilometer on the fracture surface. The crack direction was analyzed for several crack lengths, ranging from the length of one average grain to the length of twenty average grains, all lengths within the short-crack regime, in order to carefully observe the evolution of the crack direction in the Stage I and during the transition from Stage I to Stage II. A statistical analysis of the crack initiation point and the experimental crack directions was carried out. In general, the crack initiation point was close to the maximum principal stress point. The crack direction during the first grains was approximately the Mode I direction. There was no initiation in Mode II. The crack continued in the Mode I direction as it got longer, within the short-crack period. The experimental fatigue limits were compared with the predictions calculated with two models from the literature. The direction of the straight lines used by the models to make the predictions were compared with the average crack directions measured experimentally. The goodness of the models, not only from the point of view of the fatigue limit value prediction but also from the closeness of the direction of the line used for the prediction to the experimental crack direction, was discussed.