Experimental investigation on both low cycle fatigue and fracture behavior of DZ125 base metal and the brazed joint at elevated temperature

Due to the different low cycle fatigue (LCF) properties and fatigue fracture behavior between DZ125 base metal and the brazed joint, the LCF tests are carried out systematically using tension cycling under stress amplitude control conditions (stress ratio R = 0) at elevated temperature in laboratory air. The present paper sets out to investigate the cyclic deformation response of DZ125 base metal and the brazed joint in two aspects, i.e. fatigue life and fatigue fracture behavior, with the comparative method. Furthermore, the comparative method on the typical fatigue fracture surface features (including fatigue source zone, crack propagation zone and fatigue fracture zone) of DZ125 base metal and the brazed joint cycled to failure is conducted in detail. Based on both the macro mechanical behavior and macro and micro fracture observations, experimental results show that: (1) for the brazed joint, the softening is not obvious at lower stress ranges. But from 640 to 720 MPa, it is very significant; (2) under the same test condition, the brazed joint shows lower fatigue life compared with DZ125 base metal and all brazed joints are fractured in the brazing seam observed by the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM); and (3) there are many distinctive differences of the fracture phenomena between DZ125 base metal and the brazed joint as follows: (1) the crack initiation mode; (2) the crack propagation behavior; and (3) the morphology of dimple pattern at the fatigue fracture zone.