Crack initiation and growth path under multiaxial fatigue loading in structural steels

In real engineering components and structures many accidental failures occur due to unexpected or additional loadings, such as additional bending or torsion. There are many factors influencing the fatigue crack paths, such as the material type (microstructure), structural geometry and loading path. It is widely believed that fatigue crack nucleation and early crack growth are caused by cyclic plasticity. This paper studies the effects of multiaxial loading paths on the cyclic deformation behaviour, crack initiation and crack path. Three types of structural steels are studied: Ck45, medium carbon steel, 42CrMo4, low alloy steel and the AISI 303 stainless steel. Four biaxial loading paths were applied in the tests to observe the effects of multiaxial loading paths on the additional hardening, fatigue crack initiation and crack propagation orientation. Fractographic analyses of the plane orientations of crack initiation and propagation were carried out by optical microscope and SEM approaches. It is shown that these materials have different crack orientations under the same loading path, due to their different cyclic plasticity behaviour and different sensitivity to non-proportional loading. Theoretical predictions of the damage plane were conducted using the critical plane approaches, either based on stress analysis or strain analysis (Findley, Smith–Watson–Topper, Fatemi–Socie, Wang–Brown–Miller, etc). Comparisons of the predicted crack orientation based on the critical plane approaches with the experimental observations for the wide range of loading paths and the three structural materials are shown and discussed. Results show the applicability of the critical plane approaches to predict the fatigue life and crack initial orientation in structural steels.