TY - JOUR A1 - Blasón, Sergio A1 - Werner, Tiago A1 - Kruse, Julius A1 - Madia, Mauro A1 - Miarka, P. A1 - Seitl, S. A1 - Benedetti, M. T1 - Determination of fatigue crack growth in the near-threshold regime using small-scale specimens JF - Theoretical and applied fracture mechanics N2 - A complete description of the experimental procedure for characterizing the intrinsic fatigue crack propagation threshold (ΔKth,eff) as well as the fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) in the near-threshold regime using small-scale specimens is presented. A comparative study is carried out on the high strength steel S960QL considering different single edge notch bend (SENB) specimen geometries. On one hand, the reference dimensions of 6 mm thickness (B) and 19 mm width (W) are analysed and referred to as conventional specimens. On the other hand, small-scale specimens with B = 3 mm and W = 4 and 6 mm are also considered. Several loading configurations (3-, 4- and 8-point bending) are used and a load ratio R = 0.8 is applied to avoid crack closure effects. The direct current potential drop (DCPD) technique is used to monitor the crack length. The reduced dimensions of the small-scale specimens imply the necessity of implementing a modified testing procedure compared to the recommendations of current standards for the generation of FCGR data. The results show a good agreement between tests conducted on different specimen sizes, which opens new perspectives in the use of small-scale specimens for characterizing the fatigue crack growth properties in metallic materials. Recommendations and limitations of the procedure are provided and discussed. KW - Fatigue crack growth KW - Small-scale specimens KW - Intrinsic fatigue propagation threshold KW - Near-threshold regime KW - High-strength steel KW - Alternative test procedure PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tafmec.2021.103224 SN - 0167-8442 VL - 118 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-54209 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -