Effects of a Single Overload on Fatigue Crack Growth of Type 316 Stainless Steel

The effect of a single overload on the fatigue crack growth rate was investigated for Type 316 stainless steel. Fatigue crack growth tests were conducted by controlling strain and load. Tensile and compressive overloads were applied during constant amplitude cycling. The overload ratio, which was defined as the ratio of overload size to baseline constant amplitude, was also changed. The constant amplitude tests were conducted at the strain or the stress ratio of −1.0 which was defined as the ratio of the minimum value to the maximum value. The crack opening point was obtained by the unloading elastic compliance method. The crack growth rate increased after the single compressive overload. The accelerating rate increased with the overload ratio. In contrast, not only the acceleration but also the retardation of the crack growth rate was observed for some tensile overload cases. The crack growth rate increased for relatively small tensile overload cases and decreased for relatively large tensile overload cases. The change in the crack opening level was examined. The crack growth rates after tensile and compressive single overloads correlated with the effective strain and stress intensity factor ranges both for load and strain controlling modes.