Evaluation of fatigue crack propagation behavior of pressurized sintered Ag nanoparticles and its application to thermal fatigue life prediction of sintered joint

Abstract

Fatigue crack propagation rate of pressure-sintered Ag nanoparticles was investigated and prediction method of fatigue crack propagation using strain energy density computed by FEM was proposed. The fatigue crack propagation rate was lower than that of pressureless-sintered Ag nanoparticles around ambient temperature. At high temperature, multiple small cracks occurred ahead of a main crack and they were connected with one another and the propagation rate of the main crack increased, so that properties of fatigue crack propagation in the high temperature region were close to those of pressureless-sintered Ag nanoparticles. As the inelastic strain energy density and the length of its acquisition area were inversely proportional, the prediction of fatigue crack propagation that do not depend on the size of the area was possible by the use of the proportional constant of the relationship. The behavior of thermal fatigue crack propagation of sintered joint structure that was predicted by the derived fatigue crack propagation law was mostly in agreement with experimental behavior.