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Article history: Common fracture mechanics based fatigue considerations are usually limited to the resid-
Received 22 March 2017 ual lifetime determination of so-called long cracks. The extension of this concept to the
Received in revised form 13 April 2017 total lifetime, as in the S-N curve approach, requires an adequate description of short crack
Accepted 18 April 2017
propagation which cannot be based on the DK concept, and it must consider the crack clo-
Available online 20 April 2017
sure phenomenon as well as its gradual build-up at the short crack stage. Further, it has to
provide a meaningful definition of initial crack dimensions and a solution for the multiple
Keywords:
crack problem at stress levels higher than the fatigue limit as it is specific for some config-
Fatigue strength
Endurance limit
urations such as weldments. This paper aims at a discussion of all these points and offers
Fracture mechanics possible solutions which are illustrated by examples taken from the German IBESS project
Short crack propagation on fracture mechanics based determination of the fatigue strength of weldments, the
Multiple cracking results of which will be discussed in more detail in this Special issue.
Weldments Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
For constant amplitude loading, the fatigue properties of materials (and structures) are usually described by S-N or e-N
curves (Wöhler curves). It has been found that some materials such as ferrous alloys show a distinct lower limit in the S-N
curve in the range beyond 106–107 loading cycles. This is designated by the term ‘‘fatigue limit” or ‘‘endurance limit”. If a
specimen or component is loaded at stress levels below this limit no failure will occur no matter how many cycles it expe-
riences. This concept has been challenged at the background of very high cycle fatigue (108 or more loading cycles) where a
further drop of the S-N curve was found even for materials for which a distinct fatigue limit in the high cycle fatigue regime
(up to 107 cycles) was attested in the past. This is state-of-the-art today (see, e.g., [1]) although it is still not clear if all mate-
rials are concerned in the same way [2]. No detailed discussion on this topic shall be provided in this paper. When the term
‘‘fatigue limit” is used here, it characterizes the stress range or amplitude at 107 loading cycles.
Whilst the material S-N curve is usually determined on unnotched specimens and a stress ratio R = rmin/rmax = 1, the
component S-N curve, besides the material influence, is affected by a number of factors such as mean stress or stress ratio,
notches, surface roughness and impairments. In practical application those effects are taken into account by semi-empirical
correction factors on the fatigue limit.
In contrast to the S-N curve concept, fracture mechanics has the potential for implicitly taking into account such factors.
However, in common applications e.g. in the framework of a damage tolerance concept [3], it is restricted to the determi-
nation of a residual lifetime, i.e., the time that a pre-existing crack need to grow to its critical size. The dimensions of the
pre-existing cracks are usually defined by the detection limit of the non-destructive testing method applied in quality
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: uwe.zerbst@bam.de (U. Zerbst).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2017.04.030
0013-7944/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 3
Nomenclature
Abbreviations
cyc cyclic
FCP fatigue crack propagation
KT Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram
LC long crack
control after manufacturing or in regular inspections in service. It will, therefore, depending on the material, be in the order
of millimeters which – in the following – will be referred to as long cracks (the term will be explained in Section 3). Any frac-
ture mechanics approach that potentially could be applied to fatigue strength determination has to address at least there
challenges: (a) It has to adequately describe so-called short crack propagation (which cannot be based on the common long
crack concepts such as the da/dN-DK curve for principle reasons), (b) it has to provide a meaningful definition of the initial
crack dimensions as the starting point for an S-N curve relevant (residual) lifetime analysis, and (c) it has to cope with the
problem of multiple cracks for load levels higher than the fatigue limit for configurations where this is relevant. It is the aim
of the present paper to provide an introduction to these problems which also forms the basis of the fracture mechanics
approach for determining the S-N curve of weldments as the topic of this Special Issue.
2. Fatigue strength
Yukitaka Murakami, in his book ‘‘Metal Fatigue” [4], answers the question ‘‘What is a fatigue limit?” this way: ‘‘A fatigue
limit is the threshold stress for crack propagation and not the critical stress for crack initiation” as it was thought in former
times. Likewise, Keith Miller, in a distinct paper [5] demonstrated that the actual scenario at the background of the fatigue
limit is not that of ‘‘not forming” cracks but of arresting them. In engineering alloys a large number of microcracks is initiated
at various microstructural features such as slip bands, e.g., at grain or twin boundaries or at inclusions. In the following, these
microcracks shall be designated as microstructurally short cracks because their early propagation is strongly affected by the
microstructure of the material (see also Section 3). One consequence is that the crack experiences phases of acceleration,
deceleration and arrest. The conventional fatigue limit can be defined as that stress range Dre below which even the largest
of an extended number of originally propagating microstructurally short cracks is arrested. Note, however, that crack arrest
can also occur at a later stage of crack propagation when the crack is physically short or even at the transition from the short
to the long crack range (Section 3). An example of an arrested crack is shown in Fig. 1.
An early method which combines S-N based fatigue strength and fracture mechanics in a semi-empirical way is the
Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram [7] which is a log-log plot of the threshold stress range Drth against the crack length a. It is
shown in Fig. 2(a) in its original and Fig. 2(b) in the version proposed by Miller [5] which takes into consideration crack prop-
agation below the fatigue limit Drth = Dre such as mentioned above.
The KT diagram may be subdivided into three regions. For long cracks (right hand side) the diagram shows a slope of 1/2
in double logarithmic scaling. Here, the da/dN-DK concept is applicable. For very small cracks (microstructurally short; left
hand side) the threshold stress range Drth refers to the fatigue limit of the S-N curve approach which, as mentioned above,
Fig. 1. Non-propagating crack in A1N railway axle steel. The crack stopped within a grain. It experienced more than 108 loading cycles; according to [6].
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 5
Fig. 2. Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram; (a) original version [7]; (b) version with respect to the growth characteristics of microstructurally short cracks
according to Miller [5].
is defined by crack arrest. In between these two regions there is a range which can be designated as that of mechanically/-
physically short cracks. These terms will be explained in more detail in Section 3. Here it shall only be mentioned that this
intermediate range can be described by fracture mechanics, but not by the linear elastic DK concept. Note, however, that
the KT diagram does not use elastic-plastic fracture mechanics for describing this branch of the curve but, instead, applies
a semi-empirical equation proposed by El Haddad et al. [8]:
1=2
Drth ðaÞ a0
¼ ð1Þ
Drth ða ! 0Þ ða þ a0 Þ
with a0 referring to the intersection point of extended straight lines left and right in the double-logarithmic plot. The black
dot at a = d1 refers to the crack arrest event defining the fatigue strength.
Generally, the lifetime of cyclically loaded structures made of technical alloys consists of three periods: fatigue crack ini-
tiation, fatigue crack propagation and final fracture. Frequently and for pragmatic reasons, the crack initiation period is
defined as the time or number of loading cycles up to the first detectable crack. However, with respect to the physical dam-
age process this ‘‘engineering” initiation period can be subdivided into three distinct stages. Consequently, the complete life-
cycle of a fatigue crack, from its nucleation to component failure, passes through the stages shown in Fig. 3.
Crack initiation (or nucleation) in a narrower sense is the range within which a crack first develops due to the accumu-
lation of irreversible plastic deformation. This can happen at pre-existing defects which act as stress concentrators due to
stiffness mismatch with the matrix material and/or micro notch effects or – in rare cases – at the defect free surface. In
the very high cycle fatigue regime the fatigue initiation site is found beneath the surface but also in conjunction with some
micro-structural irregularities [4]. The definition of the end of the initiation phase is a bit academic because it is hard to
define when exactly an original defect has become a crack.
6 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 3. Crack length scales of the life cycle of a component subjected to cyclic loading. (a) According to [11]; slightly modified, numbers are rough estimates
only; (b) crack propagation stages including the thresholds of fatigue; according to [5].
Subsequent to its nucleation, the crack is still short compared to the characteristic dimensions of the microstructure,
mainly the grain size. Therefore, it is designated as microstructurally short. Its propagation is discontinuous, i.e., characterised
by acceleration and deceleration phases, e.g., when the crack has to overcome microstructural barriers, see Fig. 2(b). Com-
mon barriers are grain or phase boundaries where the neighboring units show different crystal orientations which affect the
development of the plastic zone ahead of the crack tip. Not all neighboring grains are of significantly different crystal orien-
tation because of which the effect is not uniform along the crack front when this becomes larger. As a result, the maximum
size of non-propagating cracks at the fatigue limit is usually larger than one grain size (e.g., Murakami reports it as three
average grain sizes for an annealed 0.13% C steel [4]). If the applied stress range is high enough, the crack, irrespective of
its size, will continue to extend.
At the next stage, when the crack front length exceeds a certain value and encloses, depending on the material, a larger
number of grains, the crack will become a mechanically short one. The influence of the local microstructural features is declin-
ing – or, better, it is averaged out – and the crack propagation becomes more continuous. The crack is still short but its
dimensions are now in the order of characteristic mechanical dimensions such as the size of the plastic zone ahead of the
crack tip. Since the crack might be fully embedded within the plastic zone, fracture mechanics concepts based on the cyclic
linear elastic stress intensity factor DK cannot be applied but have to be replaced by elastic-plastic concepts such as DJ or
DCTOD.
Like the microstructurally short crack, the mechanically short one can be arrested (e.g., due to the stress gradient in a notch
[9]) but now a further aspect comes into play: the gradual build-up of crack closure effects, which presupposes a certain
crack size. This aspect is usually characterized by the term physically short crack. The crack closure will be addressed in
Section 4.1.
Eventually a crack which has not been arrested before becomes a long one. The transition is defined by the fully developed
crack closure effects, i.e., the stress or K-factor in the loading cycle above which the crack is open has reached a constant
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 7
value. At that stage crack propagation can be described by the da/dN-DK diagram, however, corrected for the crack closure
effects, until the maximum load in terms of the stress intensity factor, Kmax, is so high that it causes interspersed events of
monotonic crack extension.
Failure of the component occurs when the crack reaches its critical state. This can be defined by Kmax (or its elastic-plastic
equivalent) exceeding the monotonic fracture resistance of the material but also by other characteristics which cause the
loss of function of the component. Note that the exact definition of the failure criterion, in many cases, is of minor relevance
since the crack propagation is very rapid at this stage and there is no much difference in terms of residual lifetime between
different definitions.
Comparing the different stages of crack propagation, it is frequently found that neither crack nucleation nor long crack
propagation but the short crack regime decisively contributes to the overall lifetime of the component [10].
Fig. 4. The three regions of the long crack da/dN-DK diagram for describing fatigue propagation.
8 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 5. Crack closure mechanism. (a) Definition of the loading parameters; (b) plasticity-induced mechanism; (c) roughness-induced mechanism; (d) oxide-
induced mechanism.
4.1.2.1. The plasticity-induced crack closure effect (Fig. 5b). When the fatigue crack propagates, i.e., the crack tip is shifted fur-
ther into the ligament, the plastically stretched material, i.e. the plastic zone formed ahead of the crack tip, remains at the
crack faces in the wake of the crack. There it forms a ‘‘thickening” particularly near the side surfaces where a plane stress
state prevails. This, of course, affects crack closure in that it increases the load above which the crack is open. The
plasticity-induced crack closure effect plays a role in the threshold as well as the Paris regions of the da/dN-DK diagram. Like
the other closure effects, discussed below, it increases with lower R-ratios and diminishes and finally disappears at high R.
4.1.2.2. The roughness-induced crack closure effect (Fig. 5c). The roughness-induced crack closure effect is caused by the asper-
ity of the crack faces and enhanced by a shear mode component of the displacement due to potential deflection and branch-
ing of the crack. Roughness-induced crack closure plays a major role near the fatigue crack propagation threshold and in
mixed-mode loading situations.
4.1.2.3. The oxide-induced crack closure effect (Fig. 5d). Comparable to the roughness-induced crack closure phenomenon, the
oxide- or oxide-debris-induced mechanism plays a major role near the fatigue crack propagation threshold for surface
cracks. In moist atmospheres oxide layers are built-up at the crack surfaces. At low R-ratios, the thickness of this might fur-
ther increase by breaking and re-forming the oxide layer due to friction, i.e., debris is formed within the crack. Note that
there is some indication [17] that oxide-induced crack closure disappears under LCF conditions, since the oxide-debris is
pressed into the crack wake during the compressive half cycle.
Short cracks are different from long cracks in that their propagation cannot be described by the linear elastic fracture
mechanics, and in that the crack closure effects are not yet fully developed but show a transient behavior depending on
the crack length. This shall be discussed in the following. Note that this discussion is restricted to mechanically and physically
short cracks. Micromechanically short cracks cannot be described by common fracture mechanics approaches. Instead con-
cepts designated by Miller as ‘‘micro-mechanical fracture mechanics” have to be employed (see, e.g. [20]).
Note that, unlike DK = Kmax Kmin, the parameter DJ – Jmax Jmin. The ‘‘D‘‘ terms refer to the arguments in the equations,
i.e., the load input parameters. The requirement for a limited amount of crack extension (typical in monotonic R-curve deter-
mination based on J) is also fulfilled since the crack increment during one loading cycle is small (ca. 0.1 mm maximum). The
path independency of the DJ integral defined this way has empirically been proven (e.g., [22,27,28]) and its application is
common today (see the extended overview in [29]). There are, however, also limitations [26], e.g., DJ may be path-
dependent when the condition of a stabilized cyclic stress-strain curve is not fulfilled.
Within the application in this Special issue an analytical approach was developed for the analytical determination of DJ,
see [25], which is based on an R6-type methodology [30], see also [31]. This is slightly different but similar to an approach
proposed by McClung et al. [32]. An important input parameter for determining the ligament yielding correction, which
forms the centrepiece of such methods, is the stabilised cyclic stress strain curve of the material (e.g, the heat affected zone
in weldments) in which short crack extension takes place [33].
4.2.2. Crack length dependency of the crack closure effects and the threshold Dkth
When the crack closure effect is defined by a dimensionless parameter U (=DKeff/DK), its development with increasing
crack length is illustrated in Fig. 6. At the beginning, when the crack is very short, e.g. it is just formed by decohesion of a
non-metallic particle from the matrix material, no crack closure effect exists and U = 1. In order to build-up the effects, some
loading history is necessary, and that means a certain dimension of the wake of the propagating crack. This forms during
crack propagation when the plastically stretched zone within the wake (or other features like oxide debris) will accumulate.
The parameter U gradually decreases to U < 1 until it reaches a crack length-independent constant value ULC. The transition
to ULC defines the transition from the short to the long crack propagation regimes. Note, that only surface cracks are consid-
ered here.
It is essential for the fracture mechanics model for generating S-N curves presented within this Special issue that the
development of the crack closure effect in terms of U is mirrored in the crack extension (Da) dependency of the fatigue crack
propagation threshold [34] (Fig. 7).
UðaÞ 1 DKth ðaÞ DKth;eff
¼ ð7Þ
ULC 1 DKth;LC DKth;eff
10 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 7. Parallel development of the closure factor U and the fatigue crack propagation threshold with increasing crack length, schematic view.
Fig. 8. Cyclic R-curve; (a) intrinsic and crack opening component, DKth,eff and DKth,op, of the fatigue crack propagation threshold DKth and (b) cyclic R-
curves obtained for S355NL steel (base metal); according to [34], see also [35] within this Special issue.
The curve at the right hand side of Fig. 7 is designated as ‘‘cyclic R-curve” and is separately illustrated in Fig. 8 along with
an example of one of the steels investigated within the IBESS cluster project. No detailed information on the cyclic R-curve
and its determination will be added here since this is the topic of another paper within this Special Issue [35]. The only point
to be mentioned is that it is the crack closure component DKth,op only, which increases during crack propagation whilst the
intrinsic value, DKth,eff, stays constant such as described above.
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 11
The cyclic R-curve and the Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram according to [8] are complementary approaches (Fig. 9) when Eq.
(1) is slightly modified by introducing an additional term a⁄ [34,36] such that the threshold is described by
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Da þ a
DKth ðDaÞ ¼ DKth;LC ð8Þ
Da þ a þ a0
The term a⁄ is introduced to fulfill the condition that DK th ¼ DK th;eff for Da ¼ 0 which is not part of the original El Haddad
model [8] to the Kitagawa Takahashi diagram. Whilst the latter is a semi-empirical approach, the cyclic R-curve provides
some physical background.
The relation between fatigue strength and fracture mechanics is more generally illustrated in Fig. 10 which comprises (a)
the S-N curve, (b) the fatigue propagation threshold Kth including (c) its crack length dependency in the physically short crack
range, (d) the Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram and (e) the principle of a cyclic R-curve analysis which finally ties together the
different concepts. What they all have in common is that they define the fatigue strength by crack arrest. This is illustrated
by the dark dot, which shows up in Fig. 10(a), (d) and (e). In principle, this point could be obtained from the Kitagawa-
Takahashi diagram. However, its determination is not straightforward there because there is no distinct transition point
of the curve at d1.
A realistic alternative is a cyclic R-curve analysis. The principle is illustrated in Fig. 11. It can be compared to the well-
known R-curve analysis for monotonic loading which also consists of three elements. The elements of the cyclic analysis are:
(a) The crack driving force DKp determined for different applied loads Dr and different crack sizes. Within the model
introduced in this Special issue, DKp is formally derived from DJ by
Fig. 9. Correspondence between the Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram (left) and the cyclic R-curve (right). Sections A, B and C refer to the crack growth stages of
microstructurally short (A), mechanically short (B) and long cracks (C).
12 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 10. The relation between fatigue strength and fracture mechanics. (a) S-N curve, (b) fatigue propagation threshold DKth including (c) its crack length
dependency in the physically short crack range, (d) the Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram and (e) the principle of a cyclic R-curve analysis.
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
DKp ¼ DJ E 0 ð10Þ
with E0 being E for plane stress and E/(1 m2) for plane strain conditions. The assumed surface crack geometry is semi-
elliptical for finite-life fatigue strength but semi-circular at the stress level referring to the endurance limit where only
one relevant crack exists (see Section 5.3).
(b) The second element of the fracture mechanics triangle is the cyclic R-curve as described above, which has
(c) its starting point in Fig. 11 at (ai; DKth,eff). The crack depth ai marks the size of a pre-existing crack which is needed for
fracture mechanics analysis.
If ai is chosen such that the crack driving force and the R-curve just fulfill the tangency criterion, it refers to the size of the
crack, which is just at the arrest-non arrest transition or, in other words, it is the largest non-propagating crack.
At this point it has to be distinguished between the finite life fatigue strength and the endurance limit respectively the
fatigue limit for N = 107 as defined within the present approach. Let’s begin with the latter. When the endurance limit is
defined as that stress range Dre or stress amplitude re below which even the largest of an extended number of cracks
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 13
Fig. 11. Schematic view of a cyclic R-curve analysis. The transition from arrest to non-arrest is given by that crack driving force curve (referring to load 2 in
the example) which tangentially touches the cyclic R-curve.
(which were previously able to grow) is arrested, the assumption of just one relevant crack at the transition from arrest to
non-arrest makes sense. That this is also the case in reality is illustrated in Fig. 12, where S-N tests of steel butt weldments
were interrupted after about 1/4 to 1/3 of the overall lifetime [37]. Subsequently the number of cracks (all cracks and only
those deeper than 50 lm) along the weld toe was determined. It showed up that the number of cracks increased with the
load level up to more than hundred (when only the 50 lm deep ones are counted) at stress amplitudes of 200 MPa. However,
at a stress amplitude of about 100 MPa which, in the experiments, roughly referred to the fatigue limit at N = 107, the count-
ing pointed to the order of zero to one crack. The weld toe length considered here was 50 mm.
In the frame of the present approach, the R-curve analysis was applied to the determination of the fatigue limits of weld-
ments [39]. In a first step, the initial crack size of a semi-circular surface crack in a tensile loaded flat and smooth plate was
determined. For this, the applied loading curve DKp-a was established for stepwise increased crack sizes, a, and a stress
amplitude ra referring to the endurance limit re of the material (which, as was shown in [33], could also be estimated from
the ultimate tensile strength Rm of the material). Then, with its starting point at the ordinate fixed to DKth,eff the known cyc-
lic R-curve was shifted along the abscissa such that the crack driving force and cyclic R-curve just touched one each other at
one point (tangency). The correspondent starting point of the cyclic R-curve at the level of DKth,eff was the initial crack size ai.
The calculations were performed for R = 1 and the resulting initial crack size ai was assumed to be a material dependent
parameter.
Fig. 12. Experimentally determined number of cracks along the 50 mm weld toe of butt welds, obtained at 1/4 to 1/3 of the overall lifetime [37], see also
[38].
14 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 13. The division of the weld toe into equidistant sections. Each of it is characterized by its own weld geometry and stress-depth profile. In addition,
each section contains an initial crack the size of which also is determined statistically.
With the cyclic R-curve, the now known initial crack size ai and the intrinsic threshold DKth,eff it was possible to deter-
mine the component fatigue limits. For this, the cyclic R-curve was fixed on both the abscissa (at a = ai) and the ordinate (at
DKth = DKth,eff) and crack driving force curves DKp(a) of the welded components were determined for different applied loads,
which were determined for the through thickness stress profiles of the real weld geometries including the toe notches The
load for which the tangent criterion with the cyclic R-curve was satisfied defined the fatigue limit of the weldment under
consideration. Note that all analyses were performed in a stochastic way taking into account the variability of the initial
crack size and of the geometry parameters at the weld toe. An example with respect to the initial crack size [39] will be pro-
vided in Section 6.2.1.
The determination of the fatigue strength in the finite life regime was further complicated compared to those of the
endurance limit because of the phenomenon of multiple crack propagation, cf. Fig. 12. The reason was that not only the ini-
tial crack size was a statistical parameter but, in addition, the local weld toe geometry was not homogeneous but showed
some variation along the toe [37]. The principle, how the analysis was performed, is introduced in more detail in [39]
and shall only be briefly highlighted here. The weld toe was subdivided into equidistant sections each of which characterized
by an individual geometry (Fig. 13) with the latter being provided in terms of empirically obtained statistical distributions of
the weld toe radius, the flank angle and the secondary notch depths. Note that Fig. 13, as a general scheme, also includes
excess weld metal and material parameters as statistical input data, which was not realized in the IBESS approach so far.
The through thickness stress distributions were determined by parametric equations developed within the IBESS cluster pro-
ject (see [39]). At the beginning of the analysis, the crack growth was determined individually for those cracks which were
able to propagate but beyond a certain crack size, interaction effects between adjacent cracks had to be taken into account.
Crack coalescence was simulated with the result that the number of cracks stepwise decreased such as did the a/c ratio until
one long surface crack along the weld toe was the result. This pattern is confirmed by empirical evidence within the own
project and the literature on weldment fatigue (for a review see [40]).
Within the approach presented in this Special issue the initial crack depth ai was defined as that depth of a semi-circular
crack that was just at the limit between arrest and non-arrest at the stress level of the material’s endurance limit. Note, how-
ever, that this approach cannot be generalized. E.g., in [41], investigating an aluminium alloy, the authors have identified
inclusions as crack initiation sites. It showed up that the cohesion of these inclusions to the matrix material was very poor.
They were rather large (with a maximum depth of about 50 lm) and this size could immediately be taken as the initial crack
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 15
Fig. 14. Definition of the initial crack size for fracture mechanics analyses by either crack arrest or initial flaws, whichever provides larger values.
length. As the consequence, a differentiated view on defining initial cracks is due. The general scheme is presented in Fig. 14.
The initial crack size determined for crack arrest provides a lower limit which is relevant only if no initial flaws larger than
this exist, provided these flaws can be treated as initial cracks. With respect to such flaws, it can be distinguished between
material defects and geometric irregularities. In the following, a brief discussion on this topic will be provided.
Fig. 15. The effect of the diameter of nonmetallic inclusions on the fatigue limit of a high strength spring steel; according to [47].
Fig. 16. Initial crack sizes and crack sizes at crack arrest obtained by the crack arrest model described in Section 4.2 for low strength and high strength
steels (base materials).
specimen preparation is accompanied by additional measures such as tempering [47] or utilizing hydrogen embrittlement
[48] before testing. Less accurate but time-saving is the metallographic investigation. Note, however, that this has to be com-
bined with a statistics of extremes method [4,48] in order to avoid misleading results. This is because fatigue is a weakest-
link phenomenon, i.e., it is triggered by the largest defect (or the largest defects) present in the highly loaded volume which
also explains part of the well-known size effect as well as the loading type effect (tension versus bending) of the fatigue
strength. The fatigue limit is decreased when the highly loaded volume becomes larger and the chance is higher to trigger
an even larger inclusion [49], see also the discussion on the size effect of the fatigue strength in [44]. Two examples of statis-
tics of extreme values of casting defects and inclusions are shown in Fig. 17.
Fig. 17. Examples of statistics of extreme values; (a) casting defects in a superalloy; according to [50]; (b) and (c) non-metallic inclusions in low strength
steel, IBESS project, this issue [37].
Fig. 18. Classical crack initiation sites in manual welds; according to [66].
Fig. 19. Typical fracture surfaces of transverse butt welded plates. (a) Automatic weld and (b) manual weld, according to [66].
Fig. 20. Schematic S-N curves for machined and polished as well as for as-forged surfaces of steel; according to [78].
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 19
6.3.3.1. Impact notches. Examples for the first one are flying ballast impact notches [44]. Note that impact damage can also
promote stress corrosion crack initiation, e.g., by local damage of coatings and that it introduces a complex residual stress
state. An example of a fatigue crack in a railway axle which initiated from a ballast indentation is reported in [84].
6.3.3.2. Scratches. The effect of scratches is similar to that of the surface roughness, i.e., scratches form stress concentrators.
In addition, they cause strongly localized plastic deformation and residual stresses which have an effect on crack nucleation
and early crack propagation [85]. An example for the influence of scratches on the S-N curve is shown in Fig. 24.
Fig. 21. Statistical distribution of corrosion pit sizes of three ex-service railway axes made of A1N steel: axles 1–2 were freight axles whilst axle 3 was from
a regional train; according to [79].
Fig. 22. The effect of secondary corrosion pits on stress concentration using simplified geometrical conditions, (a) Kt without secondary pit and (b) Kt with
secondary pit; according to [81].
20 U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23
Fig. 23. Experimental S-N curves on specimens with corrosion pits of different depths at (a) R = 0.05 and (b) R = 0.4, steam turbine blade steel; according to
[82].
Fig. 24. Effect of notch depth and notch root radius of scratches on the fatigue life of an aluminium alloy, rmax = 200 MPa, R = 0.1; according to [86].
7. Summary
A discussion has been provided on using fracture mechanics to the determination of the fatigue strength and life of com-
ponents. This comprised the description of short crack propagation based on an elastic plastic concept for the crack driving
U. Zerbst et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 198 (2018) 2–23 21
Fig. 25. Treatment of the secondary notch depth in the present approach; (a) the most important geometrical parameters considered; (b) the secondary
notch is treated as notch. For this case through thickness stress profiles are provided for 10 mm thick plates; (c) the notch depth anotch is treated as part of
the initial crack length.
force and an approach for describing the gradual build-up of the crack closure effects, a discussion on the adequate definition
of the initial crack size needed for fracture mechanics considerations and the multiple crack phenomenon at load levels
above the endurance limit. The paper provides basic information for better understanding a number of papers of this Special
issue which introduce a methodology for fracture mechanics based determination of the fatigue strength of weldments.
Acknowledgements
This work was part of the DFG/AiF research cluster ‘‘IBESS’’. The authors gratefully appreciate the funding by the AiF net-
work (Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen) and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft).
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