Institute of Metals Division - Mechanism of Fatigue Deformation at Elevated Temperatures

The basic mechanism of fatigue is studied in annealed a brass subjectecl to alternating torsion at room temperature, 100°, 200°, 300°, and 400°C, and in air. It is shown that the slip-zone micro-cracking which characterizes fatigue damage produced by small amplitudes at room temperature is progressively replaced by grain boundary cracking at elevated temperatures, replacement being complete at 400°C. Replacement occurs not because slip activity decreases hut because slip movements at elevated temperatures cease to concentrate in narrow zones and instead disperse. Decrease of amplitude at 400°C through permitting longer lives of specimens before fracture actually causes in- MOST studies of fatigue at elevated temperature have been concerned with data for design. Observations on the basic mechanism of fatigue have been largely incidental, though they have led to the interesting inference that this mechanism has features in common with that of creep.' This paper is concerned primarily with the mechanism itself. Advantage has been taken of mater- crease in pain boundary damage, an anomaly attributed to the greater difficulty at elevated tempwature of starting and propagating a crack. Surface corrosion was most pronounced along slip bands but since at elevated temperatures the slip hands showed no cracking the surface corrosion did not appear to influence onset and early spread of fatigue damage. Similarly the type of fatigue damage produced at room temperature by cyclic strain at large amplitudes, characterized by irregular mi-crocracks at zones between disoriented regions in a grain, was also replaced by mainly grain boundary cracking at elevated temperature, though not so completely. ials and procedures known to show readily how fatigue affects the microstructure of a metal at room temperature, so that direct comparison might be made with what the same procedures show when the material is subjected to fatigue deformation at higher temperatures. 1) MATERIAL This was 70/30 a brass, used extensively in previous studies at room temperature.' Specimens were turned from extruded rod to have parallel test portions 1-1/4 in. long and 7/32 in. diameter, annealed to a grain size -1/10 mm, and electro-