A combined electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD)/stereology method successfully quantifies the orientation of fatigue crack surfaces for Al-Li-Cu and Al-Cu-Mg alloys stressed at low DK, in which deformation is localized in slip bands and cracking is highly faceted. The method orients features as small as~1 lm in complex microstructures. Vacuum fatigue facets align within 15 deg of up to four variants of {111} slip planes, governed by the distribution of crack tip resolved shear stress. The small fraction of precisely oriented {111} facets suggests that cracking involves complex intraband and multiple-band interface paths. Water vapor and NaCl solution affect a similar dramatic change in the crack path; near-{111} facets are never observed, at odds with mechanisms for H-enhanced slip localization and associated slip band cracking. Rather, two environmental crack facet morphologies, broad flat and repeating step, exhibit a wide range of orientations between {001} and {110}, as governed by crack tip resolved normal stresses. The repetitive stepped facets appear to contain areas parallel to {100}/{110} on thẽ 1-lm scale, coupled with surface curvature consistent with a mechanism of discontinuous fatigue crack growth involving H-enhanced {100}/{110} cleavage and intermingled crack tip plasticity. Broad-flat faceted regions are parallel to a variety of planes, consistent with a mechanism combining high crack tip tensile stresses and H trapped at the dislocation structure from cyclic deformation, within 1 lm of the crack tip.

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The scanning electron microscope (SEM)-based electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD)/ stereology technique quantitatively establishes distributions of the crystallographic characteristics of environmental-fatigue crack features for slightly overaged Al-Zn-Cu-Mg-X (X = Zr or Mn) alloys stressed in the low-growth-rate regime. Results for these homogeneous slip alloys conform to a substantial companion study of planar slip-prone Al-Cu-Mg/Li. Transgranular-crack characteristics are similar for the Mn and Zr variants, independent of grain size and recrystallization. Two morphologies of facetlike features exhibit a wide range of crystallographic orientations, change character at grain boundaries indicating an important role of grain orientation, and form in highly tensile-stressed spatial orientations about a crack tip. Similar characteristics for Al-Zn and Al-Cu suggest a common damage mechanism, speculatively attributed to hydrogen-environment embrittlement by decohesion. Slip-deformation band cracking resulting in facets near {111}, stimulated by H-enhanced localized plasticity, is not a viable mechanism for environmental fatigue. Repetitively stepped facets with surface curvature may involve H-enhanced cleavage along {100} or {110} planes subsequently distorted by plasticity. Broad-flat facets speculatively result from tensile stress-based cracking through dislocation cell structure, evolved by cyclic plasticity and containing trapped H.