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- 2022 (13) (entfernen)
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- Fatigue crack propagation threshold (4)
- Additive manufacturing (3)
- Cyclic R-curve (2)
- Fatigue (2)
- L-PBF (2)
- Small-scale specimens (2)
- 316L (1)
- ASTM E647 (1)
- Additive Manufacturing (1)
- AlSi10Mg (1)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
Determination of fatigue crack growth in the near-threshold regime using small-scale specimens
(2022)
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.
The effect of the environmental conditions on the threshold against fatigue crack propagation
(2022)
The threshold against fatigue crack propagation (ΔKth) is a crucial parameter for the damage tolerance assessment of engineering components subjected to cyclic loading and it is composed by two distinct components, one intrinsic, dependent on the elastic material properties and the lattice type, and one extrinsic, related to the occurrence of crack closure effects. An important issue is that several factors can influence ΔKth and, in general, the fatigue crack propagation behavior. In this work, the influence of the experimental procedure, air humidity, stress ratio and test frequency on da/dN-ΔK data has been investigated. Results are discussed with their potential causes and consequences on the calculations of the residual lifetime.
The impact of crack closure and environmental effects on the experimental determination of the fatigue crack propagation threshold is a major problem for the assessment of cyclically loaded components, especially at low stress ratios 𝑅. In this work, the influence of the experimental procedure and air humidity on d𝑎∕d𝑁 − 𝛥𝐾 data at different 𝑅 is discussed. Unlike the results at 𝑅 = −1, the threshold values obtained at 𝑅 ≈ 0.8, i.e. under negligible crack closure levels, show a very small scatter band regardless of the variation of the test parameters and environmental conditions.
In order to find a resource efficient approach for the fatigue lifetime prediction of laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) processed AlSi10Mg material, results of tensile and fatigue tests were compared. The specimens were manufactured with three different L-PBF machines and studied in different heat treatment conditions (as-built, annealed, T6 heat treated). The investigations showed that the high attainable tensile strength properties after the manufacturing process are not beneficial in the high cycle fatigue (HCF) regime. In contrast, the applied heat treatments, which lead typically to a decrease of ultimate tensile strength, improved dramatically the fatigue behavior. Additionally, a clear correlation between the elongation at fracture and HCF resistance has been found for individual heat treatment conditions. This empiric relationship provides an estimation of the fatigue resistance in the presence of material defects and can be implemented in part and process approvals.
The Kitagawa-Takahashi (KT) diagram is a proven concept for describing the fatigue limit in presence of a defect or crack. It can be determined empirically with great experimental effort. It can also be estimated by means of the El Haddad relationship if the endurance limit and the long fatigue crack propagation threshold are available in reasonable accuracy. A third option is the determination using the cyclic R-curve, which describes the dependency of the fatigue crack propagation threshold on the crack growth at the short crack propagation stage. This can be experimentally determined using a closure-free initial pre-crack. It can then be applied to the determination of crack arrest for a given applied load and a given defect or crack size. Compared to the other two methods mentioned above, this option has considerable advantages: It can be applied to any component and any stress ratio. It allows the treatment of multiple cracks and provides estimations of the S-N curve in the finite life regime as well as at the endurance limit. Compared to the empirical determination of the KT diagram, the experimental effort is significantly lower and compared to the El Haddad approach it avoids problems such as the use of non-conservative long fatigue crack propagation thresholds (when the conventional load reduction method is applied to materials prone to corrosion) and the mathematical predetermination of the curve shape. The work introduces the method and provides a critical discussion as well as quantitative comparison between the different methods.
The cyclic R-curve describes the resistance of a material to fatigue crack propagation fromthe short to the long crack regimes and it is therefore an essential ingredient in any fracturemechanics-based fatigue assessment procedure. This work presents different testing proceduresemployed in the experimental determination of the cyclic R-curve, especially focusing onthe comparison with long fatigue crack propagation thresholds obtained by means of thecompression precracking load reduction (CPLR) procedure. The tests were performed on theEA4T steel considering different stress ratios. The results show a good reproducibility of thecyclic R-curves at every stress ratio and for any testing procedure. In addition, the cyclicR-curves were used in a fracture mechanics-based assessment to predict the fatigue limits ofspecimens containing micro-notches.
Al-Si alloys produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) techniques allow the fabrication of lightweight free-shape components that find space in aerospace, automotive, biomedical and military applications. Due to the high cooling rates occurring during the building process, L-PBF AlSi10Mg alloys exhibit an ultra-fine microstructure that leads to superior mechanical properties in the as-built condition compared to conventional cast Al-Si materials. Nevertheless, L-PBF processing induces high thermal gradients, leading to deleterious residual stress levels that must be considered to avoid part distortion and unpredicted failures. In order to relax detrimental residual stress and to increase the ductility, post-processing stress relief treatments are generally performed. In as-built condition the hypoeutectic AlSi10Mg microstructure consist of fine α-Al cells containing uniformly dispersed silicon nanoparticles, which are, in addition, surrounded by a eutectic Si network. Above 260°C the silicon interconnectivity starts to breakdown into spheroidized particles and to coarsen. At the same time, the heating residual stresses are relieved.
The objective of the contribution is to investigate, under different heat treatment conditions, the evolution of microstructure and residual stresses in view of optimizing the fatigue performance of the alloy. To this purpose various heat treatments in a range of temperatures between 265°C and 300°C for a duration between 15 minutes and 2 hours are performed. The microstructure modifications are analysed using a scanning electron microscope and the residual stress state is measured by laboratory X-ray diffraction.
Influence of a 265 °C heat treatment on the residual stress state of a PBF-LB/M AlSi10Mg alloy
(2022)
Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB/M) additive manufacturing (AM) induces
high magnitude residual stress (RS) in structures due to the extremely heterogeneous cooling and heating rates. As the RS can be deleterious to the fatigue resistance of engineering components, great efforts are focused on understanding their generation and evolution after post-process heat treatments. In this study, one of the few of its kind, the RS relaxation induced in an as-built PBF-LB/M AlSi10Mg material by a low-temperature heat treatment (265 °C for 1 h) is studied by means of X-ray and neutron diffraction. Since the specimens are manufactured using a baseplate heated up to 200 °C, low RS are found in the as-built condition. After heat treatment a redistribution of the RS is observed, while their magnitude remains constant. It is proposed that the redistribution is induced by a repartition of stresses between the a-aluminium matrix and the silicon phase, as the morphology of the silicon phase is affected by the heat treatment. A considerable scatter is observed in the neutron diffraction RS profiles, which is principally correlated to the presence (or absence) of pockets of porosity developed at the borders of the chessboard pattern.
In the framework of the fatigue assessment of welded components, several methods are available in design standards such as the nominal stress, hot-spot stress, notch stress and linear elastic fracture mechanics approaches. The present paper aims at comparing two advanced local approaches for the fatigue strength assessment of different welded joints made of steel. The first one is IBESS which is based on short crack fracture mechanics. The second one is the PSM which instead involves the strain energy density approach. Both methods will be briefly presented, and the fatigue life prediction results discussed. The results obtained for the joint geometries considered in this work show advantages and drawbacks of the approaches, which are thoroughly analysed as well.
The robust determination of the threshold against fatigue crack propagation DKth is of paramount importance in fracture mechanics based fatigue assessment procedures. The standards ASTM E647 and ISO 12108 introduce operational definitions of DKth based on the crack propagation rate da/dN and suggest linear fits of logarithmic DK– da/dN test data to calculate DKth. Since these fits typically suffer from a poor representation of the actual curvature of the crack propagation curve, a method for evaluating DKth using a nonlinear function is proposed. It is shown that the proposed method reduces the artificial conservativeness induced by the evaluation method as well as the susceptibility to scatter in test data and the influence of test data density.