Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Fatigue crack advance presumably detected by acoustic emission signals

Journal Article · · Scr. Metall.; (United States)

In recent papers the authors made the prediction that the value of the exponent n of the Paris fatigue crack growth equation da/dN = C(..delta..K) /SUP n/ depends upon where in a stress cycle a fatigue crack begins its incremental growth. C is a constant, K is the cyclic stress intensity factor = 2sigma..sqrt..(..pi..a) where sigma is the amplitude of the cycle stress, a is the crack half length, and da/dN is the crack growth rate per cycle. If a fatigue crack begins its crack advance phase when the cyclic stress is still well below its peak value then n should be n approx. = 2. On the other hand if the incremental growth only commences when the cyclic stress is virtually at its peak value then n should be n approx. = 3 to 4. In this letter preliminary results are presented of an experiment which is being carried out to test these predictions. The position in a stress cycle where crack advance starts is assumed in this study to occur where the specimen gives off an acoustic emission (AE) signal. Several methods were used to characterize the observed acoustic emission signals. These are adding oil to the fracture surface and the changing of load ratio (R-ratio).

Research Organization:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201
OSTI ID:
5531398
Journal Information:
Scr. Metall.; (United States), Journal Name: Scr. Metall.; (United States) Vol. 17:3; ISSN SCRMB
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Transition from small to long fatigue crack in C-Mn steel
Journal Article · Fri Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1993 · Scripta Metallurgica et Materialia; (United States) · OSTI ID:5306130

Determining worst-case fatigue thresholds for grain-bridging ceramics
Conference · Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 EDT 2002 · OSTI ID:805154

Cyclic fatigue crack propagation behavior of 9Ce-TZP ceramics with different grain size
Journal Article · Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993 · Journal of the American Ceramic Society; (United States) · OSTI ID:5726332