Effect of microstructure on fatigue properties of steels in Sea Water

Abstract

In this study, fatigue crack propagation properties in sea water are investigated, when considering the usage for hull structural steels. The rate of the optimum ferrite-bainite (F/B) steels shows superior resistance even in a sea water.Corrosion fatigue properties in sea water are investigated for both conventional ferrite-pearlite (F/P) steels and the F/B steels. It is clarified that fatigue strength of the F/B steels is higher than that of the F/P steels. As to corrosion fatigue crack propagation rates, the F/B steel originally has much superior resistance in normal conditions, and acceleration factors of corrosion crack propagation rate in sea water to that of air is almost constant regardless of microstructure in steels. These two characters brings superior propagation resistance in sea water. As to corrosion fatigue strength, the F/B steel has the advantage of not only a long fatigue crack propagation life, but also long fatigue crack initiation life. This extended initiation life in the F/B steel comes from the small number of corrosion pits, which might be corrosion fatigue crack initiation sites. This difference of pit number may depend on homogeneity to general corrosion. In case of the F/P steels, the microstructure is not so homogeneous, therefore, general corrosion is not uniform. In case of the F/B steels, the general corrosion is uniform because of fine and homogeneous microstructures.