On the critical resolved shear stress and its importance in the fatigue performance of steels and other metals with different crystallographic structures

Abstract

This study deals with the numerical estimation of the fatigue life represented in the form of trength-life (S-N, or Wöhler) curves of metals with different crystallographic structures, namely body-centered cubic (BCC) and face-centered cubic (FCC). Their life curves are determined by analyzing the initiation of a short crack under the influence of microstructure and subsequent growth of the long crack, respectively. Micro-models containing microstructures of the materials are set up by using the finite element method (FEM) and are applied in combination with the Tanaka-Mura (TM) equation in order to estimate the number of cycles required for the crack initiation. The long crack growth analysis is conducted using the Paris law. The study shows that the crystallographic structure is not the predominant factor that determines the shape and position of the fatigue life curve in the S-N diagram, but it is rather the material parameter known as the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS). Even though it is an FCC material, the investigated austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 shows an untypically high fatigue limit (208 MPa), which is higher than the fatigue limit of the BCC vanadium-based micro-alloyed forging steel AISI 1141 (152 MPa).