A Concise Binomial Model for Nonlinear Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Behavior at Elevated Temperatures

The creep-fatigue crack growth problem remains challenging since materials exhibit different linear and nonlinear behaviors depending on the environmental and loading conditions. In this paper, we systematically carried out a series of creep-fatigue crack growth experiments to evaluate the influence from temperature, stress ratio, and dwell time for the nickel-based superalloy GH4720Li. A transition from coupled fatigue-dominated fracture to creep-dominated fracture was observed with the increase of dwell time at 600 °C, while only the creep-dominated fracture existed at 700 °C, regardless of the dwell time. A concise binomial crack growth model was constructed on the basis of existing phenomenal models, where the linear terms are included to express the behavior under pure creep loading, and the nonlinear terms were introduced to represent the behavior near the fracture toughness and during the creep-fatigue interaction. Through the model implementation and validation of the proposed model, the correlation coefficient is higher than 0.9 on ten out of twelve sets of experimental data, revealing the accuracy of the proposed model. This work contributes to an enrichment of creep-fatigue crack growth data in the typical nickel-based superalloy at elevated temperatures and could be referable in the modeling for damage tolerance assessment of turbine disks.

Damage-Based Assessment of the Fatigue Crack Initiation Site in High-Strength Steel Welded Joints Treated by HFMI

This study aimed to identify the fatigue crack initiation site of high-frequency mechanical impact (HFMI)-treated high-strength steel welded joints subjected to high peak stresses; the impact of HFMI treatment residual stress relaxation being of particular interest. First, the compressive residual stresses induced by HFMI treatment and their changes due to applied high peak stresses were quantified using advanced measurement techniques. Then, several features of crack initiation sites according to levels of applied peak stresses were identified through fracture surface observation of failed specimens. The relaxation behavior was simulated with finite element (FE) analyses incorporating the experimentally characterized residual stress field, load cycles including high peak load, improved weld geometry and non-linear material behavior. With local strain and local mean stress after relaxation, fatigue damage assessments along the surface of the HFMI groove were performed using the Smith–Watson–Topper (SWT) parameter to identify the critical location and compared with actual crack initiation sites. The obtained results demonstrate the shift of the crack initiation most prone position along the surface of the HFMI groove, resulting from a combination of stress concentration and residual stress relaxation effect.