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In hardened steels, such as spring steels or bearing steels, specimens of a hardened spring steel. Distributions of
fatigue failure is usually caused by intrinsic material defects inclusions are determined experimentally and are related to
(inclusions, for example) situated at the specimen surface or failure-initiating defects on fracture surfaces. Fatigue crack
in the specimen interior, or extrinsic defects (notches, for propagation data are determined for long cracks. Starting
example) on the specimen surface. The magnitude of surface from this experimental information, models based on fracture
notches varies with the manufacturing process of the speci- mechanics are used to predict fatigue life. Special interest is
mens, and ranges from macroscopic notches, through turning devoted to the behaviour of very short cracks at defects.
patterns and grinding furrows, to polishing marks. The fatigue
process involves a competition between different crack- M a t e r i a l characteristics
initiating defects. The defect which first generates a fatal
crack controls the life of the specimen. It is often a large Chemical composition and heat treatment
defect situated close to the specimen surface and can generate A commercially produced spring steel is studied in the present
a microcrack early in fatigue life. work. The composition of the steel is given in Table 1. The
It is known that the fatigue loading level can have a steel was cast in a 3 t ingot taken from a 72 t melt. It was
significant influence on the location of critical defects. At hot rolled to a bar diameter of 28 mm. Fatigue bars were
low loading levels internal defects can cause the majority of machined after spheroidizing the steel. The specimens were
failures; at high loading levels defects near the surface can be subsequently heat treated to a hardness of 50 HRC. The
more important to the fatigue process. details of the heat treatment are given in Table 2. The
The purpose of the present work is to analyse by microstructure after heat treatment consists of tempered
experimental and theoretical means the effect of fatigue martensite. The austenite grain size was 6 Izm as determined
loading level on the site of crack initiation for polished with the intercept method.
HE
Table 2. Heat treatment of steel E
o.1
Austenitizing temperature 860 °C
Austenitizing time 60 min o
\
\
Inclusion characterization \
Three different techniques were used to measure the distri- 0.001
~' B
bution of inclusions in the steel. In two cases longitudinal \
I n I I • I
sections of the bars were studied with optical and scanning
10 20
electron microscopy respectively. The third method was based
on chemical dissolution of the steel matrix and extraction and Inclusion thickness, d(IJm)
counting of the remaining particles.
Optical microscopy Fig. 1 Accumulated size distribution of four inclusion types (A,
B, C and D) determined on two-dimensional longitudinal
Optical microscopy was used to determine the size distri- sections of bars with optical microscopy. Inclusion size is given
butions of inclusions on longitudinal sections of the rolled as thickness in radial direction of bars
bars. The measurements were made manually according to
Swedish Standard SS 111116. The magnification was xl00
and a specimen area of 30 cm 2 was analysed. The inclusion Table 3. Coefficients in exponential representation
distribution was divided into four groups. Manganese sulphide of inclusion size distribution (Equation (1)) corre-
inclusions correspond to type A, alumina inclusions to type sponding to B-type inclusions after optical
B and duplex inclusions containing alumina and manganese microscopy. The fitting is performed for inclusion
sulphide correspond to type C. Equiaxed oxide inclusions sizes larger than 3 I~m
which were not believed to be alumina were referred to as
type D inclusions. The inclusion distributions were evaluated f k
with the help of comparative pictures. Inclusion size d was Inclusion type (mm -1 ) (ixm -1 )
measured in the radial direction of the bar. This is the relevant
size parameter since fatigue cracks in the present case are
B, large 0.027 0.30
orthogonal to the axial direction of bars. Figure 1 shows the
accumulated size distributions. NA is the number of inclusions
per unit area with a section thickness larger than d.
The A-, C- and D-type inclusions show similar slopes
in Fig. 1. The B-type inclusions have a smaller slope than Scanning electron microscopy
the other inclusion types for inclusion thicknesses above 3 tzm. Automatic image analysis based on scanning electron
The B-type inclusions dominate the inclusion population for microscopy (Jeol 6400) and X-ray analysis (Link eXL) was
larger thicknesses. used to quantify size distributions of different inclusion types.
The accumulated size distribution of B-type inclusions The magnification was × 80 and the total area searched was
beyond the transition point of Fig. 1 was fitted to a straight 4.1 cm 2. Longitudinal sections of the rolled bars were studied.
line according to the expression Based on the X-ray analysis, four main groups of inclusions
were identified: sulphides, nitrides, duplex and oxide
NA = f e x p ( - k d ) (1)
inclusions. The sulphides correspond to manganese sulphide,
The fitting parameters are presented in Table 3. the nitrides to vanadium containing nitrides, the duplex
D'I
L
O /o
D~
and different categorization of inclusions probably contribute
to the differences.
Calculation of three-dimensional size distribution
~E from two-dimensional distribution
E 0.100
The inclusion size distributions studied so far were obtained
from plane sections through the steel. In the models for
Q fatigue failure to be presented later, three-dimensional size
distributions are needed. A simple procedure to transform
from two- to three-dimensional size distributions was sug-
~ O.OLO gested in Ref. 1. Assuming that the inclusions are spherical
the three-dimensional frequency distribution can be written
..Q A ~N
E
Z gv(D) = ~ k D f exp(-kD) (2)
\
"o
o
"O
10-8
c-
10-1 _ o
/
o
e~
0- 9 o
2~ t
db
E
E
~ 10 -2 i i I °l I i I I i f I i I
1o 100
t-
O AK (MPa/m)
o¢- Fig. 4 Fatigue crack growth rate determined for long cracks
with three-point bending specimens. Plotted as a function of
Dissolution techniques range of stress intensity
~, 10-s \
E
,-,I
Figure 4 illustrates the crack growth curve for one
sample. The range of stress intensity at a crack growth rate
of 10-9m cycle -1 is 6 MPa~/'m. The growth rate is often
7 10-4tOpticaIB typemiCr°Sc°PY"~\ ~\
used to define in a technical sense the threshold AKth. It can
be seen, however, that the growth rate also decreases
significantly below that range of stress intensity. Crack
I I closure was determined by considering the development of
0 10
I
20
I I
30
~I
40
I
50 60 load versus displacement across the notch mouth. At a range
Inclusion diameter, D(tam) of stress intensity corresponding to the threshold the stress
intensity at closure was found to be Kc] = 2.5 MPax/-m for
Fig. 3 Accumulated size distribution of inclusions determined the sample of Fig. 4.
with chemical dissolution technique on a volume of steel.
The dissolved inclusions are counted in a scanning electron Table 6 presents average values from the three tested
microscope. For comparison two size distributions are shown samples. The threshold value AKth is defined at a crack
which are converted from two-dimensional distributions growth rate of 10-9m cycle-L The effective value of the
threshold is defined as fiJ£e~f = AKth-Kcl. The crack growth
curve is characterized with the aid of the Paris law, da/dn
Table 5. Parameters of exponential inclusion size = C (AK)", as a function of the full range of stress intensity.
distribution fitted to data from dissolution tech- The constant C is expressed in terms of the units in Fig. 4.
nique
Fatigue tests on smooth specimens
f k
Inclusion type ( m m -1 ) ( ~ m -1 ) Testing geometries and procedures
Fatigue testing was performed on an Amsler HFP 5000
Oxides 0.016 0.25 pulsator at a frequency of 110 Hz. Fully reversed loading
with R = =
Pmin/Pmax --1 was used. The specimen geometry
is illustrated in Fig. 5. Heat treatment according to the
procedure of Table 2 was performed on the turned specimens.
satisfactory in view of the differences between the techniques Subsequently grinding was done followed by mechanical
to determined the size distributions. polishing with 3 ~m diamond paste first in the circumferential
Fatigue crack growth data for SEN specimens direction of the bar and finally in the axial direction.
Alignment of specimens in the testing machine was achieved
Long crack growth data for the present steel were determined
with three-point bend testing of side edge notched (SEN)
specimens according to ASTM standard E399/E647. The Table 6. Long crack growth data from triple SEN
specimens had a dimension of W = 24 mm. The specimens tests
were heat treated according to the procedure of Table 2
resulting in a hardness of 48 HRC, which is slightly less than AK,. Kc, AK~'# m C
for the smooth fatigue bars. Testing was performed with the (MPa ~/-m) (MPa ~/-m) (MPa ~/-m)
compliance method for crack length measurement. Crack
closure was studied by evaluating non-linearities in the load
displacement curves. The load ratio .R=Pmin/Pmax 0.1.= 6.3 2.6 3.7 3.1 5.0 × 10 -12
Triple tests were performed.
I
polished fatigue bars
Fatigue Fatigue
loaded loaded
RH = 3.0 +0.1 at stress at stress
amplitude amplitude
Reference 800 MPa 1100 MPa
O0
Number of
2 R rain = 7 . 0 +
_ 0.02 Rc = 75 fatigue
O +1 loading cycles 0 9 x 10e 6 x 103
o
+0 0
, .O_oi .-[
+0 0
Probabilities of specimen failure
10.0_0[ 1
The distributions of fatigue lives were plotted in the Weibull
diagram of Fig. 6. The individual probabilities for each
specimen were calculated according to the optimized procedure
^+0.00 of Ref. 5. The diagram shows a trend towards longer lives
25 .U_o.o 3
for lower stress amplitudes. The failure probabilities can only
Fig. 5 Geometry of hour-glass-shaped specimen used in fatigue be represented by a single straight line for the highest stress
life determination amplitudes. The lower amplitudes require a double-line
representation.
with a specially designed device. The stress concentration Identification of failure causes
factor at the minimum section of the bar is 1.02. 3 This value
The fracture surfaces after fatigue loading were studied in the
is applicable at the surface and is reduced further into the
scanning electron microscope to identify causes of failure.
specimen. The stress concentration effect was considered so
Table 8 presents results for the test series of the stress
small that it was neglected.
amplitude of 800 MPa. Inclusions were found to initiate all
Fatigue test series were performed at five stress ampli-
failures except one which was caused by a surface scratch on
tudes: Act/2 = 800, 900, 1000, 1100 and 1200 MPa. The tests
the specimen. The crack-initiating inclusions were alumina,
were run to failure or 9 × 106 cycles, whichever occurred
calcium aluminates or duplex inclusions also containing
first. At three of the amplitudes 18 specimens were tested,
manganese sulphide. The failures at short lives corresponding
ie at A~/2 = 800, 900 and 1100 MPa. A smaller test series
to the line with large slope in Fig. 6 are caused by inclusions
was performed for amplitude 1000 MPa with only 10
in the size range around 10 I~m and they are situated at or
specimens. Two tests were performed at 1200 MPa.
very close to the specimen surface. The failures at longer
The tests were performed at ambient temperature. A
lives corresponding to the line with smaller slope in Fig. 6
certain temperature raise occurred in the specimens during
are associated with inclusions situated well inside the specimen
fatigue loading, especially at high loading amplitudes. Tem-
and with a size around 20 I~m. The different slopes of the
perature measurements on the minimum section of the bars
failure probability curve for the stress amplitude 800 MPa
indicated a temperature of 40 °C at a stress amplitude of 1100
can thus be associated with different locations and sizes of
MPa and 180 °C at amplitude 1200 MPa. The large temperature
inclusions.
increase at 1200 MPa was the main reason for the limitation
Figure 7 shows the duplex inclusion situated close to the
of the test series at that amplitude.
Residual stresses in fatigue specimens
The present heat treatment operation is known to produce
relatively small residual stresses, of the order of 100 MPa, in p1100 MPa =/900 MPa
fatigue bars. 4 The mechanical working of the specimen surface o 90 1200 MPa/ ' / / 1000 MPa
D
introduces additional residual stresses in the surface region 70 • ¢
,/
of the specimens. 4 50 / oo
.J / "
The residual stresses were measured with X-ray techniques 800 MPa
on the polished surface of three fatigue specimens. One of
the specimens was not exposed to fatigue loading and the u~
20 / oI
other two specimens were fatigue loaded at stress amplitudes 48
800 and 1100 MPa respectively. Table 7 presents the number ,0 / i I"
0-
103 104 105 106 107
the order of 100 MPa are present on the specimen surface
before fatigue testing and after long life at a stress amplitude Cycles
of 800 MPa. A relaxation of the surface residual stresses has Fig. 6 Weibull plot of probability of specimen failure at five
occurred at the fatigue loading level of 1100 MPa. stress amplitudes fatigue loaded at R = -1
Distance from
Equivalent inclusion to Detected
Cycles to diameter specimen surface elements in
Sample failure Nf (l~m) (~m) inclusions Comments
1 7.3 X 10a 8 2 AI
2 1.2 × 105 8 1 AI, Mn, S, Ca
3 1.5 × 105 12 1 AI, Ca
4 1.8 x 10 ~ 8 0 AI
5 2.0 × 10 s Scratch
6 3.4 X 10 s 24 7 AI Ca, Mn, S
7 7.2 × 10 ~ 25 123 AI Ca
8 1.0 X 106 27 655 AI Ca
9 1.4 × 106 25 600 AI Ca
10 3.2 × 106 13 89 AI Ca
11 3.8 X 106 29 15 AI Ca, Mn, S
12 3.9 X 106 25 115 AI Ca
13 5.1 x 106 24 557 AI Ca
14 >9.0 x 108 No failure
15 >9.0 × 106 No failure
16 >9.0 × 106 No failure
17 >9.0 x 106 No failure
18 >9.0 x 106 No failure
Fig. 7 The crack-initiating inclusion of specimen 6 tested at Fig. 8 The crack-initiating inclusion of specimen 9 tested at
stress amplitude 800 MPa. The inclusion is situated just below stress amplitude 800 MPa. The inclusion is a calcium aluminate
the specimen surface and is of duplex type and it is situated well into the specimen interior
specimen surface which caused the failure of specimen 6 of The failure causes at stress amplitude 1000 MPa (Table
Table 8. The calcium aluminate inclusion of Fig. 8 initiated 10) show the same characteristics as in Table 9 at 900 MPa.
the failure of specimen 9. It was situated approximately half The causes of crack initiation at stress amplitude 1100
a millimetre from the specimen surface. MPa in Table 11 are associated with the same types of surface
Table 9, corresponding to a stress amplitude of 900 MPa, cutting inclusions as in the tests at 900 and 1000 MPa. The
shows that almost all failures at that loading level were caused inclusion sizes are around 10 ~m.
by alumina, calcium aluminates, duplex combinations of these N o detailed data are presented for the few tests at stress
inclusion types with manganese sulphide, or holes probably amplitude 1200 MPa since the test temperature, close to
originating from inclusions. All initiation points were close 200 °C, was considered too high to give data relevant for
to the specimen surface. N o difference in crack initiation site comparison with the other tests.
can be seen in the two life regimes with different slopes in It can be stated that alumina-containing inclusions
the Weibull diagram (Fig. 6). Surprisingly, there seems to be dominate both on fracture surfaces and for large inclusion
a slight tendency towards larger inclusions for longer lives. sizes above 10 ~m, in both the statistical distributions based
The range of inclusion sizes was from around 10 to 20 ~m. on optical microscopy type B (Fig. 1) and scanning electron
Figure 9 illustrates a duplex inclusion situated at the surface microscopy type D (Fig. 2). A clear correlation thus exists
of specimen 7 tested at stress amplitude 900 MPa. between the most frequent occurrence in those cases. No
Distance from
Equivalent inclusion to Detected
Cycles to diameter specimen surface elements in
Sample failure Nf (l~m) (l~m) inclusions Comments
Distance from
Equivalent inclusion to Detected
Cycles to diameter specimen surface elements in
Sample failure Nf (~m) (ta,m) inclusions Comments
1 3.8 × 10 4 10 0 AI, Ca
2 4.5 × 10 4 10 0 AI
3 4.8 × 10 4 Surface defect
4 5.5 × 10 4 0 Only hole
5 6.0 x 10 4 No cause identified
6 2.0 × 10 s 7 0 AI
7 2.5 x 10 s 19 0 AI No failure
8 >1.0 × 10 6 0 No failure
9 >1.0 × 10 6 0
10 >1.0 × 10 6 0
Table 11. Failure causes of specimens tested at a stress amplitude of 1100 MPa
Distance from
Equivalent inclusion to Detected
Cycles to diameter specimen surface elements in
Sample failure Nf (p,m) (l~m) inclusions Corn ments
1 1.0 × 10 a 11 0 AI, Ca
2 1.1 × 10 a Edge deformed
3 1.2 × 10 4 5 0 AI, Ca, Mn, S
4 1.2 × 10a 0 Only hole
5 1.3 × 10 a Edge deformed
6 1.3 × 10 a 9 0 AI, Ca
7 1.4 × 10 a 5 0 Only hole
8 1.5 x 10 a Edge deformed
9 1.5 × 10a 4 0 AI, Ca, Mn, S
10 1.6 × 104 5 0 Only hole
11 1.6 × 10a 12 0 AI, Ca
12 1.8 × 10 a 0 AI Slightly below surf
For cracks not cutting the specimen surface, 6 (R+a) < q. where q is the distance between the pore centre and the
specimen surface and Acre. is the effective range of applied
AIKe" = Ao"~ff~ F(o0 (4) stress. In the model calculations it will be assumed that cracks
are open for positive stresses. The difference in driving force
and for cracks cutting the specimen surface, (R+a) > q
for a surface-cutting crack and an internal crack by a factor
~1/£elf = 1.15 AO"elf ~,F(oL) (5) of 1.15 is based on the difference between an internal penny-
shaped crack and a semicircular crack. 7 The driving force of
an annular crack around a spherical pore was taken from Ref. 7.
A crack growth law is needed to derive the life from the
above expressions. The growth will be considered from the
0.21875 (c~+1)2+2 ] very first crack of the size of one Burgers vector to final
( ~ - + 0.28125 ( c t + l ) ' + 1 (6) failure of the specimen. This means that growth equations
both for short and long cracks must be formulated. Figure
for crack growth, M('[~f. where amin corresponds to the initial crack size, ie Burgers
v e c t o r , amax is the crack size before failure, and a* corresponds
to the transition point between constant and Paris crack
growth rates. The final crack size, a . . . . was selected as one
quarter of the specimen diameter.
In order to calculate the crack growth for pores situated
on different axial positions of the fatigue specimens the
applied stress must be derived for sections at different
distances from the minimum section of the hour glass
specimens. The applied stress can be written
As f
A.
In the calculations it will be assumed that cracks at pores
are open when the applied stress is positive. This means that
the effective range of the stress is equal to the stress amplitude.
This is believed to be a reasonable approximation for hard
steels 6 although the SEN data show a certain crack closure
u AK e f f
also for positive stresses.
i/ th
Propagation rates for short cracks
AKeff The model of the previous section contains two parameters
which describe the growth of short cracks: one growth rate
Fig. 11 The crack growth curves as a function of effective
range of stress intensity. Two different crack growth rates are for cracks at pores or inclusions which cut the specimen
used for short cracks at surface-cutting inclusions and for surface, As, and one rate for internal ones, Ai.
internal inclusions Since no short crack growth data are available for the
size was used based on the fractography, and other parameters ,~-
i
°/o / /
took values as indicated in and below Table 12. The fitting • i
distance from the specimen surface were given typical values ~ 10-~
o
&e/2 R Q da/dn
(MPa) ( p.m ) ( p,m ) (m ) Ncalc NlO%
• "exp •NTOO/o
"exp
lO 3 10 4 10 5 10 6
Life Conclusions
Fig. 16 Weibull diagram at stress amplitude 1100 MPa with A hardened spring steel was fatigue tested in fully reversed
experimental data and calculated results based on the inclusion load control at five different stress amplitudes between 800
size distributions from the dissolution technique
and 1200 MPa.
specimen interior. Such an effect could somewhat artificially be 1) Inclusion size distributions were determined with
described with different short crack growth rates as in the optical and scanning electron microscopy on sections
present paper. An alternative approach would be to introduce of the material and with a chemical dissolution
an incubation period for the creation of the very first crack technique on a volume of material. These distributions
which is larger for internal than for surface-cutting inclusions. were compared for large inclusion sizes by converting
We now present some results from such a model. the data from microscopy to three-dimensional distri-
It is assumed that cracks of length one Burgers vector butions. The agreement was satisfactory.
are created at the start of fatigue testing for inclusions cutting 2) The crack growth behaviour for long cracks was
the specimen surface. A finite number of cycles are needed determined with three-point bend tests. The threshold
to create a crack of the same size at internal inclusions. That stress in~nsity for crack propagation was found to be
incubation period is assumed to depend on the streess 6 MPa,~'m and the effective t~eshold corresponding
amplitude only. The crack growth law is assumed to be the to an open crack was 4 MPax/m.
same for cracks at internal and surface-cutting inclusions. 3) The fatigue tests on smooth specimens showed a dual
The minimum growth rate for the short cracks is assumed linear behaviour in Weibull diagrams for the failure
to take the previously determined value for surface-cutting probability at stress amplitudes 800, 900 and 1000
inclusions, As, (Table 13). The duration of the incubation MPa. A single straight line could describe the data for
period was fitted to experimental lives corresponding to 70% the stress amplitude 1100 MPa.
failure probability for the three lowest stress amplitudes 4) At stress amplitude 800 MPa it was found that near-
tested. At the smallest stress amplitude, 800 MPa, it was surface inclusions caused the failures for the low-life
found that the incubation period covers some 98% of the total part of the Weibull diagram. Above the transition