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Abstract:The aim of this study is to investigate the fully-reversed low cycle fatigue properties of Alloy 617 in the air at 950 • C; these tests were conducted at total strain ranges from 0.9% to 1.5% with a constant strain rate of 10 −3 /s. The result of the fatigue tests showed a decrease in fatigue resistance with an increasing total strain range. The reduction of fatigue resistance was due to the effect of the total strain range and microstructure evolution during high temperature, such as brittle oxides cracking. At all testing conditions, the cyclic softening mechanism was observed as a function of the total strain range in the current high temperature condition. An analysis of low cycle fatigue resistance was performed using the Coffin-Manson relationship and the total strain energy density; it was found that Alloy 617 followed these relationships well. In addition, this study compared well with previous work reported in the literature for a similar testing condition. Post-fracture analysis on the fracture surfaces of failed specimens revealed a more severe damage cracking at the periphery of specimens due to the increase in the total strain range. The surface connected grain boundary cracks induced by oxidation were obvious at low strain range. Thus, the primary crack propagation occurred in transgranular mode from persistent slip bands.

Abstract:In order to better understand the high temperature low cycle fatigue behavior of Alloy 617 weldments, this work focuses on the comparative study of the low cycle fatigue behavior of Alloy 617 base metal and weldments, made from automated gas tungsten arc welding with Alloy 617 filler wire. Low cycle fatigue tests were carried out by a series of fully reversed strain-controls (strain ratio, R ε =´1), i.e., 0.6%, 0.9%, 1.2% and 1.5% at a high temperature of 900˝C and a constant strain rate of 10´3/s. At all the testing conditions, the weldment specimens showed lower fatigue lives compared with the base metal due to their microstructural heterogeneities. The effect of very high temperature deformation behavior regarding cyclic stress response varied as a complex function of material property and total strain range. The Alloy 617 base weldments showed some cyclic hardening as a function of total strain range. However, the Alloy 617 base metal showed some cyclic softening induced by solute drag creep during low cycle fatigue. An analysis of the low cycle fatigue data based on a Coffin-Manson relationship was carried out. Fracture surface characterizations were performed on selected fractured specimens using standard metallographic techniques.

Cyclic stress response and fracture behaviors of Alloy 617 base metal (BM) and Alloy 617 weld joints (WJ) are investigated under strain controlled low cycle fatigue (LCF) loading. Axial fully reversed total-strain controlled tests have been conducted at room temperature with total strain ranges of 0.6, 0.9, 1.2, and 1.5%. At the all testing conditions, weld joint specimens have shown higher peak stresses than the base metal specimens, whereas the plastic strain accumulation of the base metal specimens is comparatively higher than those of the weld joint specimens. The cyclic stress response behavior of both base metal and weld joint specimens revealed initial cyclic hardening during first small number of cycles followed by progressive softening to failure. Higher strain amplitudes decreased the fatigue lives for both base metal and weld joint specimens; subsequently weld joint specimens had lower fatigue resistances relative to base metal specimens. Furthermore, the cracking in weld joint specimens initiated in the weld metal (WM) region. The crack initiation and propagation showed transgranular mode for both base metal and weld joint specimens; especially weld joint specimens showed a wedge type crack initiation about 45 degrees to the loading direction because of the dendritic structure.

AbstractThis paper presents the reliability estimation of fatigue strength of the material used for crank throw components. The material used for crank throw components is forged S34MnV steel and subsequently heat-treated by normalising and tempering. High cycle fatigue testing under fully reversed cycling (R = −1) was performed to determine the fatigue limit of the material. The staircase test method is used to obtain accurate values of the mean fatigue limit stress until a number of cycles up to 1E7 cycles. Subsequently, the fatigue test results depend strongly on the stress step and are evaluated by the Dixon-Mood formula. The values of mean fatigue strength and standard deviation predicted by the staircase method are 282 MPa and 10.6MPa, respectively. Finally, the reliability of the design fatigue strength in some selected probability of failure is calculated. Results indicate that the fatigue strength determined from accelerated staircase test is consistent with conventional fatigue testing. Furthermore, the proposed method can be applied for the determination of fatigue strength and standard deviation for design optimisation of S34MnV steel.