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JAN KOHOUT1
Introduction
Fatigue tests at lower and higher temperatures are relatively complicated
and expensive. Deeper insight into the temperature dependence of fatigue
behaviour could save a part of fatigue tests, which need not be performed
in studied temperature interval so densely. On the other hand, fatigue proc-
esses based purely on temperature-dependent cyclic plastic deformation
can be observed only in a limited temperature region. At higher tempera-
tures fatigue is accompanied by creep and enhanced diffusion [3], at very
low temperatures some athermal processes of plastic deformation occur [9].
Stress-fatigue lifetime curves (S-N curves or Wöhler’s curves) are
the classical way of describing fatigue behaviour of structural materials.
A decrease in testing temperatures shifts S-N curves towards higher
1
Department of Mathematics and Physics, Military Technology Faculty, University of De-
fence, Kounicova St 65, CZ-612 00 Brno, Czech Republic. E-mail: jan.kohout@unob.cz.
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
Phenomenological derivation
The dependence of the applied fatigue stress amplitude a on the number
of cycles to failure Nf is usually described by the Basquin equation [17]
a ( N f ) a N bf (1)
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
log a ( N f ,T )
c (4)
log T N f const .
a ( N f , T ) a*N bf T c (5)
Constant a* differs from the constant a in Eqs. (1) and (2). If these
equations are valid for a certain reference temperature T0, then Eq. (5)
can be rewritten in the form [4, 5]
c
T
a ( N f , T ) a N bf (6)
T0
thereby containing the original constant a.
Decreased temperatures
For verification of Eq. (6) validity the results of push-pull (tension-
compression) strain-controlled fatigue tests performed on commercially
pure copper (99.98%) at temperatures of 83, 173, and 295 K (–190, –100,
and 22 °C) performed by Lukas and Kunz [6, 7] were used. They are pre-
sented as S-N curves (experimental points together with regression lines)
in Fig. 1. The dashed lines represent separate fits of experimental data for
each temperature using Eq. (1), whereas the full lines represent one
common fit for all temperatures using Eq. (6). In the first case the total
sum of least squares is equal to 3751, in the second case to 4094. The
increase of the sum by 9% when the number of fitted parameters de-
creased from 6 (2 parameters for each of the 3 temperatures) to only 3
shows the suitability of the proposed equation. The difference between
the full and the dashed lines is always less than 5 MPa, which represents
a very low value, far less than the scatter of experimental results (disre-
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
garding the two results for lives of about 2105 and 3105 at a temperature
of 83 K, the accuracy would be better still). The value and standard de-
viation of the newly introduced parameter are c = (0.4090.014).
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
Discussion
In finite life region Eq. (6) representing the Basquin function general-
ized for various temperatures seems to be very good tool for description
of fatigue stress (stress amplitude as well as upper stress of loading cy-
cle) in dependence on number of cycles to fracture and on temperature.
Its double power law dependence allows its linearization if log Nf – log
a or log T – log a fits are used. The slopes of the straight line families
are equal to parameter b or to parameter c, respectively. The values of
both b and c parameters are always negative. In all up to now studied
cases the range of c parameter is approximately –0.2 (copper at very
low temperatures [8]) to –0.6 (ferritic nodular cast iron, determined
from results of thesis [16]). Previously determined values of c parameter
very close to –0.5 led to hypothesis that a 1 T [4, 5], but subse-
quent studies gave also values close even to –0.2. It was one of the rea-
sons, why this hypothesis has been rejected.
Standard deviations of parameter c are equal to a few per cent of its
values. This means that this parameter is a very good tool for a rela-
tively precise description of temperature dependence of fatigue curves
in finite-life region where the Basquin equation can be used. In the ex-
treme this parameter can be determined from at least two finite-life fa-
tigue curves for two different temperatures T1 and T2 and then the
curves for temperatures from the interval (T1,T2) and its near vicinity
can be predicted using Eq. (6). This equation valid for the finite-life
region can be expanded for low-cycle region down to ultimate tensile
strength Rm if the Rm(T) dependence is known, see two slightly different
ways described in [4, 5]. On the other hand, the (ultra) high-cycle region
of fatigue (Nf 107) has not been studied yet from this point of view.
Scheme containing family of practically parallel straight lines for
various numbers of cycles to fracture with common slope c, which
represents Eq. (6) in log T – log a fit, is shown in Fig. 6. This figure
shows also both limits of Eq. (6) validity: high-temperature limit Tc
connected with creep appearance and low-temperature limit Ta con-
nected probably with athermal processes of plastic deformation. Just the
application of log T – log a fit allows estimation of both temperature
limits, which are demonstrated by the deviations from straight-line
course. While the determination of Tc limit can be done only very
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
roughly or needs many test temperatures near this limit, the determina-
tion of Ta limit can be done more precisely on condition that plastic de-
formation processes as well as fatigue stress are really athermal below Ta
limit. Its graphical estimation 15 K for copper tested at very low tempera-
tures [8] can be compared with the sum of the lowest experimental tem-
perature 4.2 K and temperature shift Tincr = 10.4 K, i.e. 14.6 K.
Both the temperature limits of Eq. (6) validity were determined only
for different materials: the high-temperature limit for X22CrMoV121
steel and the low-temperature limit for copper. It would be very useful
to have at disposal experimental data of fatigue tests from extremely
wide temperature range including very low and sufficiently high tem-
peratures for one material. Unfortunately, no results of fatigue tests cov-
ering all three temperature regions with both temperature limits have
been found in literature and it is out of authors’ abilities to perform
them by their own means.
Figure 6. Schematic division of temperature range into athermal region, fatigue region
described by power law dependence, and region with important role of creep.
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ANOMALIES IN TEMPERATURE SHIFT OF S-N CURVES
Conclusions
1. The equation suitable for describing the dependence of fatigue
strength of finite lifetime on the number of cycles to fracture and
testing temperature in the range of low as well as of elevated tem-
peratures was proposed and successfully verified.
2. At high temperatures, a deviation from this equation downwards to
lower stresses can be observed. It is evidence that another degrada-
tion process joined fatigue; in studied case it was creep.
3. Also at very low temperatures another deviation from this equation
to lower stresses appears which is probably connected with athermal
processes of plastic deformation.
4. The log T – log fit using proposed equation consists in a family of
parallel straight lines with slope equal to the temperature sensitivity
parameter. Using this fit, the deviations from this equation can be
presented most apparently.
5. The values of temperature sensitivity parameter have been calculated
between –0.2 (copper) and –0.6 (ferritic nodular cast iron). Knowing
its value, interpolation of S-N curves in temperature and prediction
of their shift with temperature can be done.
Acknowledgements
Financial support of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic
within research project MO0FVT0000404 is gratefully acknowledged.
Moreover, the author is grateful to all the authors (see [6, 7, 8, 10]),
whose original experimental results were used in presented considera-
tions and calculations.
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