Development of Fatigue Pre-Cracking Method into Micro-Sized Specimens for Measuring Fracture Toughness

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn our previous investigations [1, 2], we have demonstrated that the introduction of fatigue pre-crack ahead of a notch is required to measure reliable fracture toughness values even for micro-sized specimens. However, it is rather difficult to introduce a fatigue pre-crack into a micro-sized specimen as once a fatigue crack starts to grow then the fatigue fracture occurs within one thousand cycles and this makes it extremely difficult to control fatigue crack length. Therefore, a new fatigue pre-cracking method is required for measuring fracture toughness. In this investigation, a new fatigue pre-cracking method has been proposed for micro-sized specimens and fracture toughness tests were carried out for the micro-sized specimens with fatigue pre-crack. Micro-cantilever beam type specimens with dimensions of 10 × 10 × 50 μm3 were prepared from an electroless deposited Ni-P amorphous alloy thin film and notches were introduced by focused ion beam machining. Fatigue pre-cracks were introduced ahead of the notches by far-field cyclic compression method using a mechanical testing machine for micro-sized specimens (MFT2000). Fracture tests were also carried out using the testing machine. Fatigue pre-cracks with length of 0.2 μm were confirmed on the fracture surfaces ahead of the notches in the far-field cyclically compressed specimens. This indicates that the fatigue pre-cracking method developed in this investigation is promising for measuring accurate fracture toughness for micro-sized specimens for MEMS applications.