Near‐threshold behaviour of shear‐mode fatigue cracks in metallic materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis review paper presents a brief state‐of‐the art of the research on long fatigue shear‐mode cracks and describes some recent results on effective crack growth thresholds and mode I branching conditions achieved by the authors for ARMCO iron, titanium with two different microstructures, nickel and stainless steel. A special technique for preparation of fatigue precracks enabled us to substantially suppress the crack closure (friction) effects at the beginning of the experiment, and the measured threshold values could be considered to be very close to the effective ones. In all investigated materials, the effective thresholds under the remote mode II loading were found to be about 1.7 times lower than those under the remote mode III loading. Effective thresholds under mode II loading of investigated materials were found to follow a simple formula assembled by the shear modulus G, the magnitude of Burgers vector b and a goniometrical function nα of the mean deflection angle that depends on the number of available crystallographic slip systems. These quantities determine the intrinsic material resistance to mode II crack propagation at the threshold. A simple criterion for mode I branching in terms of effective threshold values well reflects a transition from the shear‐mode to the opening‐mode controlled crack propagation at the threshold. The associated transition deflection angle of 40° is a material independent constant.