The Study of Elastic-Plastic Fatigue Behavior of Nigerian-Rolled NST 37-2 Steel

Abstract

The NST 37-2 steel represents about 75% volume of Nigerian-produced steel which is yet to be fully characterized for its fatigue behavior. Thus, its suitability for many applications is questionable. This paper presents a framework based on the theory of elasto-plasticity in order to make appropriate recommendations in this regard. Experimentally, tensile tests were carried out on test specimens to establish the baseline material properties of the steel in annealed, as-rolled, normalized and hardened/tempered conditions. Fatigue tests were then conducted at 60% Su; 70% Su and 80% Su of the test material and fractographic examinations on the test specimens were subsequently carried out. The frequency harmonic fatigue analysis was implemented in the ANSYS software environment for the numerical study. The elastic-plastic material property was described by the von Mises yield criterion, the flow rule of Prandtl-Reuss, and the kinematic hardening rule of Prager. The numerical results indicate with respect to rate-dependence fatigue behavior that the annealed test specimen is most resilient under cyclic deformation as compared with the normalized, hardened/tempered and as-rolled specimens respectively. The experimental and numerical results were found to be in close agreement and based on the general performance, the steel material is recommended for use in low cycle, quasi-static fatigue applications.