Quantitative analysis of intrinsic mode III fatigue thresholds in bcc metals

Abstract

Intrinsic (effective) threshold is a material characteristic important for both engineering and science connected to fatigue crack propagation processes. This paper presents the first attempt to give a quantitative interpretation of the mode III effective threshold. The approach of a local growth mode previously applied to the remote mode II cracks, which led to a prediction of values of the mode II effective threshold in metallic materials, is applied to remote mode III cracks in materials with coplanar shear-mode crack growth (bcc metals). Local mode II stress intensity factors of a zig-zag shaped crack front loaded in the remote mode III were determined by numerical modelling for various angles of in-plane crack front asperities. The results were compared with experimentally measured effective thresholds and geometry of real crack fronts. It was found that for relatively small angles of the in-plane precrack asperities (23° for the ARMCO iron and 25° for niobium) the remote mode III crack propagation can be realized purely by the local mode II growth mechanism. Experimentally measured average angles of asperities on real precrack fronts (25° for the ARMCO iron and 26° for niobium) were very close to those obtained theoretically. This represents a quantitative confirmation of a dominance of the local mode II mechanism previously deduced only qualitatively by observation of fractographical patterns.