FATIGUE

Monday, October 21, 2019 0

 Failure – Classification
Failure of a material component is the loss of ability to function
normally or to perform the intended job

Three general ways of failure:

Excessive elastic deformation: e.g. : buckling. Controlled by design

and elastic modulus of the material.
Excessive plastic deformation: ,Controlled by yield strength of the
material e.g. : loss of shape, creep and / or stress – rupture at elevated
temperatures.
Fracture: It involves complete disruption of continuity of a
component–under static load : brittle or ductile ,
fatigue, mode in which most machine parts fail in service under
fluctuating / cyclic load .

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 Fracture

Fracture is defined as the separation or fragmentation of a solid body

into two or more parts under the action of stress.

Fracture is classified based on several characteristic features:

characteristic terms used

Strain to fracture Ductile Brittle

Crystallographic Shear Cleavage
mode
Appearance Fibrous Granular and
bright
Crack propagation Along grain Through grains
boundaries

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 Fracture modes

Ductile and Brittle are relative terms.

Most of the fractures belong to one of the following modes :
(a) rupture, (b) cup-&-cone and (c) brittle.

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Ductile fracture Vs Brittle fracture

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Ashby et a.. Acta Metallurgica 27 (1979) 699-729

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Monday, October 21, 2019
 Ductile Fracture

 Ductile fracture in tension occurs after appreciable plastic

deformation.
 It is usually preceded by necking.
 It exhibits three stages-
(i)formation of cavities
(ii) growth of cavities
(iii) final failure involving rapid crack propagation at about 45o to
the tensile axis.
 The large energy absorbed before ductile fracture.
 Fractography of ductile fracture reveals numerous spherical dimples
separated by thin walls on the fractured surface.

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Ductile Fracture

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 Ductile and Brittle Fracture

Stress strain curve showing brittle and

tensile failure showcasing large energy
absorbed before ductile fracture while less
energy absorbed before brittle fracture

Actual photographs of
Ductile fracture and
brittle fracture

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 Brittle Fracture

Brittle fracture in takes place with little or no preceding plastic

deformation.
 It occurs, often at unpredictable levels of stress, by rapid crack
propagation.
 Crack propagates nearly perpendicular to the direction of applied
tensile stress, and hence called cleavage fracture.
 Most often brittle fracture occurs through grains i.e. Transgranular
 Three stages of brittle fracture-
(i) Plastic deformation that causes dislocation pile-ups at obstacles
(ii)Micro-crack nucleation as a result of build-up of shear stresses
(iii)Eventual crack propagation under applied stress aided by stored
elastic energy.

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Brittle Fracture

Failure of Titanic

Failure of Liberty commercial ship during world war II

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 Notch effect on Fracture

 A material’s sensitivity to different kinds of fracture is measured using

notched specimen subjected to impact load. Further study involves
examining the fracture surfaces.
 Two kind of specimen configurations & loading directions are using
during impact testing as shown below.
 Large energy absorbed by ductile specimen before fracture while
less energy absorbed by brittle specimen before fracture.

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 Effect of variables on rupture in impact test

Velocity: The maximum velocity of striker of impact test machine should

be less than the critical velocity of material to be tested.
Specimen: Standard specimen show ductile fracture , while at low
temperature specimen show brittle fracture
Notch Effect: As sharpness of notch increases the energy of rupture
decreases.
Temperature: Ductile to brittle transition depends on temperature

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 Fatigue failure

 It is observed that materials subjected to dynamic /repetitive/

fluctuating load (stress) fail at a stress much lower than that
required to cause fracture in a single application of a load.
 Structures subjected to repeated cyclic loadings can undergo
progressive damage which takes place due to propagation of
cracks. This damage is called fatigue
 It is estimated that fatigue accounts for ~90% of all service
failures due to mechanical causes. Corrosion being the other major
cause of failures.
 Usually, fatigue failures occur after considerable time of service.
 The physical effect of a repeated load on a material is different
from the static load.
 Failure always being brittle fracture regardless of whether the
material is brittle or ductile.

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 Fatigue failure

 Fatigue failure is usually initiated at a site of stress concentration

(e.g. a notch in the specimen or at crack site or at site of foreign
inclusion).
 In general fatigue is the human reaction of ‘tiredness’ due to repetitive
work.
 Fatigue testing is often conducted in bending or torsion mode
 If the stress have a origin in thermal cycling, then the fatigue is
called thermal fatigue.
 Three factors play an important role in fatigue failure:
(i) value of tensile stress (maximum)
(ii) magnitude of variation in stress
(iii) number of cycles
 Fatigue also depends on their geometry and microstructure of the
component.
 Fatigue life also depends on stress concentrators and residual stress
in the material.
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Types of Cyclic Stresses

max and min . are maximum

and minimum
stresses, while m and a are
called mean stress and
stress amplitude respectively.
m = 1/2 (max + min )
a = 1/2 (max - min )

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 Fatigue testing

Fatigue or endurance limit of a material is defined as the maximum

amplitude of completely reversed stress that the standard specimen can
sustain for an unlimited number of cycles without fatigue failure.
The results of these tests are plotted by means of an S–N curve.
The S–N curve is the graphical representation of stress amplitude (Sf )
versus the number of stress cycles (N) before the fatigue failure on a log-
log graph paper.

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 S–N curve

For ferrous materials like steels, the S–N curve becomes at 106 cycles, indicates
the stress amplitude corresponding to infinite number of stress cycles.The
magnitude of this stress amplitude at 106 cycles represents the endurance limit of
the material. Stress amplitude below Fatigue limit give ‘infinite life’

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S–N curve

 Steel, Ti show fatigue limit

 Al, Mg, Cu show no fatigue limit

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 Factors Influencing Fatigue

1.Loading
Nature and type of loading: -Axial tension, bending, torsion and combined
loading-Mean and Variable components in case of Repeated, Fluctuating and
Alternating loading and Frequency of loading and rest periods

2. Geometry
Size effects and stress concentration

3.Material
Composition, structure, directional properties and notch sensitivity

4. Manufacturing
Surface finish, heat treatment, residual stresses

5.Environment
Corrosion, high temperature, radiation

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