IntJ Fatigue11 No 2 (1989) pp 117-123

Fatigue crack growth and

microscopic crack opening
behaviour under impact fatigue load
T. Tanaka, K. Kinoshita and H. Nakayama

The fatigue crack growth rates and crack opening behaviours were observed under
impact and non-impact fatigue loads for high strength, low alloy HT-60 steel and
austenitic SUS316 stainless steel, which had almost the same ultimate tensile strength
of about 600 MPa. Particular attention was paid to the microscopic crack opening
behaviour near the crack tip under two load conditions, evaluated using a fine grid
method. The results showed no difference between the crack growth rates under impact
or non-impact fatigue loads in the case of HT-60 steel, but in the case of SUS316
steel the crack growth rate under impact fatigue was much higher than that under
non-impact fatigue. Such a difference between the two steels could be correlated
with the microscopic crack opening behaviour under two load conditions; in the case
of SUS316 steel, both the effective stress intensity range at the crack tip and the
effective crack opening displacement behind the crack tip were larger for the crack
formed by impact fatigue load than for the crack formed by non-impact load, whereas
in the case of HT-60 steel, the difference between the values under impact and non-
impact fatigue loads was significantly smaller.

Key words: impact fatigue; crack propagation; microscopic crack opening behaviour;
effective crack opening displacement

Fatigue crack growth under impact load is an important
aspect of metal fatigue because of the possibility of the accel-
eration of crack growth rates. In fact, the recent works by
Murakami et al and by the authors isolated several characteris-
tics of fatigue crack growth under repeated impacts. The
crack growth rate under impact fatigue load is higher than
that under non-impact load when compared with a da/dN
vs A K diagram; the crack opening ratio is relatively higher
under impact load than under non-impact load; and in some
cases, the crack growth rate under impact load depends on
the magnitude of applied stress, that is, the larger the applied
stress range, the higher is the crack growth rate. l-s
To achieve a clearer understanding of the crack growth
behaviour under impact fatigue load a series of fatigue crack
growth tests was carried out under impact and non-impact
load conditions using two sorts of alloy steels; high strength
low alloy HT-60 steel and austenitic stainless SUS316 steel.
These two steels have almost the same ultimate tensile
strength but differ in their yielding behaviours; the high
strength steel HT-60 shows distinct yielding, whereas the
stainless steel SUS316 has no such yielding, its stress-strain
curve showing a smooth transition from elastic to plastic
behaviour at a very low stress level followed by a pronounced
strain hardening in the latter region.
Intensive efforts were made in this study to clarify the
microscopic crack opening behaviour under impact fatigue
load by using a fine grid method. 6 It was found that the
crack growth rate under impact fatigue load was higher
than that under non-impact load only in the case of SUS316
steel, and that in the case of HT-60 steel, the crack growth
rate was approximately the same under the two load condi-
tions. Such a difference in crack growth behaviour may be
caused by the difference in the microscopic crack opening
behaviour of the two steels; that is, in the case of SUS316
steel, both the effective stress intensity range at a crack tip
and the effective crack opening displacement behind a crack
tip were larger for the crack propagated under repeated im-
pact load than those under non-impact load, whereas in the
case of HT-60 steel, the difference in those values measured
under impact and non-impact loads is relatively small.
Experimental
Materials and specimens
High strength low alloy HT-60 steel and the austenitic stain-
less SUS316 steel used in the experiments have approximately
the same ultimate tensile strength of about 600 MPa.Tables
1 and 2 list the chemical compositions and monotonic tensile
properties of the materials. From Table 2, it may be seen
that the yield strength ratio (Oy,/OB) of SUS316 steel is about
half of that of HT-60 steel, and that the elongation of SUS316
steel is 2.6 times larger than that of HT-60 steel. Therefore
SUS316 steel is much more ductile than HT-60 under mono-
tonic tensile loads.
Both steels were machined to plate specimens with a
centre-notch of the same shape as indicated in Fig. 1. HT-60
steel supplied as hot rolled plate was machined without any
heat treatment whilst SUS316 steel was machined after

0142-1123/89/020117-07 83.00 © 1989 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd

Int J Fatigue March 1989 117
Table 1. Chemical composition of the materials

Material Chemical composition (%)

C Si Mn P S Ni Cr Me Cu Nb

HT-60 0.091 0.44 0.99 0.006 0°007 0.03 0.07 < 0.01 - 0.026
S U $316 0.06 0.56 1.46 0.024 0.005 13.0 16.3 2.17 0.26 -

Table 2. Conditions of heat t r e a t m e n t and

m o n o t o n i c tensile properties of the materials
amax
Yield Tensile Elongation,
Material Heat stress, ~,, strength, ~. ~ (%)
treatment (MPa) (MPa)

HT-60 As supplied 461 567 27

SUS316 1050"C,1h, 255" 580 71 ~a
water
quenched

*0.2% proof stress

0
A
Detail of crack starter notch

0.5 ms
2-~9 , m2/
Fig. 3 Example of impact stress pattern

T
30 . . . .

i
IS ;- t of about 9 Hz. An example of the impact stress pattern
obtained using this testing machine is represented in Fig.
3. Non-impact fatigue tests were carried out using an electro-
hydraulic serve type fatigue testing machine under the condi-
45 J 45 i tions of a stress ratio (ami,/a,~) of R = 0 and a loading
frequency of 30 Hz. These conditions were selected for a
~.. 130 _ _ sinusoidal stress pattern to coincide with the impact stress
i
Thickness 2 mm pattern shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 1 Shape and size of the specimens The crack growth rate curves and the macroscopic crack
opening behaviours under impact and non-impact fatigue
Speed changinggear Crank Slider Steel rod loads were examined first. Then the influence of the micro-
i Belt pulley /Co nnecting rod / Steel pipe /Specimen~ed
scopic crack opening on the macroscopic crack growth be-
I\ i l I / I ! II haviour was studied by observing the deformation patterns
of near-crack-tip regions formed under impact and non-im-
pact loads.
The macroscopic crack opening stress was measured
by means of the unloading elastic compliance method; the
displacement component was detected by the strain gauges
cemented across the crack growth path on the specimen
Motor /Stopper / R \ Microswitch~ Block surface, whereas the microscopic crack opening behaviour
Plain bearing Rubberring Hook Plain bearing was measured by the fine grid method. The relative displace-
ment of the upper and lower crack surfaces was measured
Fig. 2 Principle of the Hopkinson bar type impact fatigue testing
machine directly by reading the mesh points of fine grids adhered
to the specimen surface and covering the crack tip area.
solution heat treatment. The specimens were finished by Fig. 4 shows an example of fine grid patterns made
electrolytic polishing to remove the surface layer affected using an aluminium thin film. The fine grids were produced
by machining. as interference fringes by the method of double exposures
of He-Cd laser beams. The details of this method were given
in a previous report. 6 The grid pitch was 10 Ixm in the
Apparatus and procedure case of HT-60 steel and 9 lam in the case of SUS316 steel.
Fig. 2 shows the principle of the Hopkinson bar type impact The measuring procedure for microscopic crack open-
tensile fatigue testing machine operated at a loading rate ing behaviour was as follows. Fatigue crack growth tests

118 Int J Fatigue March 1989

 t
" ~''~ e'
Fig. 4 Fine mesh pattern covering the crack tip area
Loading direction
z~ Ydl
Cracktip
7/
- of three-point bending impact tests by Kikumoto a al indi-
Fatigue c r e c k ~ \ stress obtained experimentally was almost the same as the
~ ~ Length,l+6
- ) Gauge length,/
Displacement,8
Fig. 5 Co-ordinate system and definition of gauge length
were carried out under respective load conditions until the
crack length reached a predetermined value. Then, removing
the specimen from the testing machine, a monotonic load
was applied to the specimen step-wise from zero to the maxi-
mum equivalent of the stress in the crack growth test, and
at each load level the displacements of the grid points vertical
to the crack growth path were measured on enlarged photo-
graphs by using a profile projector. The procedure is illus-
trated in Fig. 5, in which the broken lines indicate the free
grids at zero load, and the solid lines show the grids after
the application of a monotonic load in the indicated direction.
The coordinates x and y are taken as in the figure with
the origin at the crack tip. Then, the vertical displacement
8 iny-direction at the distance x - - d was obtained by measur-
ing the indicated distances l and l + 8, respectively, before
and after the application of load. The gauge length l is
taken to three grid intervals in this illustration.
Fig. 6 shows schematic load vs displacement curves
obtained by the described procedure at a given distance from
the crack tip. A smooth curve was drawn through the data
points as in Fig. 6a, and three stress parameters cr~op, ~op
and a=were determined as indicated in Fig. 6b to characterize
the microscopic crack opening behaviours, where o m is the
stress at the start of crack opening, oop is the stress for
the crack to open completely, and ou is an intermediate
stress level defined as the intersection of the upper and lower
tangents to the given curve.
Int J Fatigue March 1989
E
1.0 - -
/ Omax
Oop
0.5 /
(/3
OK)p
I.-II/~m
a o b 0
Displacement,3
Fig. 6 Stress-displacement curve and definition of the microscopic
crack opening parameter
Results and discussion
Crack growth rate curve and macroscopic
crack opening behaviour under impact fatigue
load
Relations between da/dN and AK under impact fatigue load
are represented in Figs 7 and 8, respectively, for HT-60
and SUS316 steels, where the applied stress range Aer is
taken as a parameter. The da/dN vs AK relations under
non-impact loads are shown in both figures. Since the results
cated that the dynamic stress intensity factor K D for impact
static stress intensity factor Ks,7 the following formula pro-
posed by Tada 8 was used to calculate the value of stress
intensity factor K regardless of the stress patterns.
K = aJ- l - 0.025x" + o.06x') Jsec( X/2) (l)
k -- 2a/W
where a is the half crack length and IF is the width of
the specimen.
Fig. 7 indicates that, in the case of HT-60 steel, there
is no difference between both crack growth rates under non-
impact and impact fatigue loads; the straight line representing
the results of the non-impact fatigue tests lies in the middle
of the narrow scatter band covering the results of the impact
fatigue tests. However, Fig. 8 shows that, in the case of
SUS316 steel, the crack growth rate is significantly higher
under impact fatigue load than under non-impact load, this
trend becoming more pronounced at higher AK values.
Hence, it is suggested that a material having low yield
strength and large fracture elongation, and therefore having
a large work hardening capacity, such as SUS316 steel, has
a higher crack growth rate under impact fatigue load com-
pared to a material with a relatively small work hardening
capacity.
In previous studies, increases in the fatigue crack growth
rate under impact load such as in Fig. 8 were observed
for 0.1%C low carbon steel, s aluminium alloy 2017-T3 s and
high strength low alloy steel HT-80, 9 among which the
0.1%C steel and HT-80 steel were the materials having dis-
tinct yieldings. No such trend was observed for dual phase
steel which had a tensile strength of about 800 MPa and
a small yield strength ratio (o./oB). 9
Thus, the results of the impact fatigue crack growth
rate tests carried out hitherto, including this study, do not
indicate a clear correlation between the monotonic tensile
properties and the impact fatigue crack growth behaviour.
119
 Impact, R =0 1.0

Impact, R = 0
Result in non-impact
10-4 fatigue

U ~3-'-"~n
o.5 mo m ~aa~m mm m
Ao (MPa)[]
I~ 140 []I

E 139 B
E 136 []
136 m
/~.~1~ Ao(MPa)
~.(~ 149 a
0
10
I
15
I
20 25
I

AK (iPax/-~
10-s
Fig. 9 Dependence of U o n A K ( H T - 6 0 steel)

C.)
1.0 --
Result in non-impact
fatigue Impact, R = 0
Result in non-impact
fatigue

1 I I 0.5- m [] [] 1"3
10 .6 o~ o ~o m° s []
10 15 20 30
B AO (MPa)
A K (MPa~/~)
148
Fig. 7 da/dN vsAKrelations (HT-60 steel) 147
140
0 I I I
10 15 20 25
4K (WPa~
Fig. 10 Dependence of U o n AK(SUS316 steel)
Impact, R = 0 []
Therefore, further systematic investigations are needed to
10 - 4
make clear the essential features of the impact fatigue and
[] to find the correlated material properties with a better corre-
lation.

[] Macroscopic crack opening behaviour under

impact fatigqe
E A o (MPa)
E
v 148 17 Figs 9 and 10 show that the dependence of macroscopic
147 [] crack opening ratios U (equal to (K,~-Kop)/AK)on AK under
"D
145 rll impact and non-impact fatigue loads for the respective mater-
~r~ ials. The values of U under impact load are slighdy less
10-5 - -
140 I::1
than those under non-impact load and are nearly equal to
138 [] 0.5 for the respective materials. Such a slight difference seems
O
131 [] to have no significance on the crack growth rates under
the respective load conditions for both materials, and this
(.2 Result in non-impact means that the observation of macroscopic crack opening
fatigue behaviour gives no explanation of the higher crack growth
rate under impact load in the case of SUS316 steel as shown
in Fig. 8.

Microscopic crack opening behaviour under

10_ 6 l l I
10 15 20
impact fatigue load
30
A K (MPaM'~m) Figs 11 and 12 show the variations of the microscopic crack
opening stresses o ~ , a, and aop plotted against the distance
Fig. 8 d a / d N vs AKrelations (SUS316 steel) d from the crack tip. The gauge length / was taken at three

120 Int J Fatigue March 1989

 5
I After non-impact fatigue Non-impact - -
i A K = 15.2 MPav/'m,, R = 0 • m o = oop Impact . . . . o ~ ~
1.0 l-- After impact fatigue ..... 4
-g
L ~ = 15.4 MPavrm, R = 0 • • o.
K ~ • • • Oiop
3
E ~ ~ . i 1 _ _ _ _ ~ . _ _ _ _ _ B •~ . . . . •
I~ - - " • - --'41--- -- k . . . . . -Q- . . . . . . . . 1
E
0.5 a 8 2
¢= f _ ~=°°~__ n
L . . . . -,e---=,-~,-~-._-_~
O = Ou .~ a
1 C- 7 _ ..A ^
0 ~0"1-0" I , 1
0 100 200 300 400 0
100 200 300 400
Distance from the crack tip, d (/am)
Distance from the crack tip, d (/am)
Fig. 11 Microscopic crack opening hehaviour around the crack tip -1
(HT-60 steel)
Fig. 13 Displacements around the crack tip area (HT-60 steel)

After non-impact fatigue 10

AK = 18. I MPax/'m, R = 0 Non-impact
I m pact . . . . .
1.0 After impact fatigue • '= o = Oop 9
~'~'~.~ = 18.l MPaVrm. R = 0 . . . . . :: °o~

f 0 : Oma x
0.5 f

/
/
6
Ol l I I I
0 100 200 300 4O0 7 = Oop
E
Distance from the crack tip, d (/am) 8
Fig. 12 Microscopic crack opening behaviour around the crack tip ._~ 4
(SUS316 steel) e~
B / , I "491
grid intervals (~, 30 Wn) for HT-60 alloy steel, and four I-

grid intervals (,~ 36 ~tm) for SUS316 steel. In both figures,

round symbols show the results for non-impact fatigue, and
square symbols those for impact fatigue. The macroscopic
crack opening stress level ~ , (equal to 1 - U ) under non-
impact and impact fatigue loads are also shown. As a general
trend it was observed that the microscopic crack opening
parameters, oop , o~op and o. gradually decrease from the
crack tip to certain saturated levels, and that there was a
good correspondence between o. and ~..
Figs 11 and 12 indicate that there is an obvious differ-
ence between the microscopic crack opening behaviours
under impact and non-impact fatigue loads. After the repe-
tition of non-impact fatigue load, the microscopic crack open-
ing stresses for both materials gradually decrease from the
crack tip over the distance of 150-200 lam before reaching
a saturated value, but after the repetition of impact fatigue
load, this distance is less than 100 I~m for both materials.
This means that when the load is applied the crack formed
under non-impact load tends to open gradually from the
crack tip backwards, but that the crack formed under
repeated impact load opens almost simultaneously except
in the region close to the crack tip. Moreover, in the crack
tip region, the microscopic crack opening stresses after im-
pact fatigue are lower as a whole than those after non-impact
fatigue test. These observations indicate that the effect of
the deformed zone at the crack tip on the closure of crack
surfaces in the wake of crack propagation is restricted to
a much smaller region under impact fatigue load than under
non-impact fatigue load: the plastic deformed zone at the
crack tip is smaller in the case of impact fatigue.
o=0
,.D..j3 ~ ~ D- -EP--- ~
0 I I
0 100 200 300 4OO
Distance from the crack tip, d (/am)
Fig. 14 Displacements around the crack tip area (SUS316 steel)
Examined in greater detail, it was observed that the
value of Oov at the crack tip showed no noticeable difference
in the case of HT-60 steel for cracks formed by either non-
impact and impact fatigue tests. However, in the case of
SUS316 steel, the value of Oop was obviously lower for the
crack formed by impact load than for the crack formed
by non-impact load. Therefore, under impact load a larger
microscopic effective stress range was attained at the crack
tip for this material. This seems to be a cause of the higher
crack growth rate of this material under impact fatigue load.
Figs 13 and 14 indicate the displacement of grid points
along the crack, including the crack tip area at the respective
stress levels corresponding to o = 0, ~op and Omu. The
data points and curves for a = 0, and o , = show the displace-
ments for the unloaded state and at maximum stress, whereas
the displacements for oop were determined from the stress
versus displacement curves behind the crack tip. It was
observed that the displacements at Ore= were almost the same
regardless of the load conditions for the respective materials,

Int J Fatigue March 1989 121

 Grid strain, ~//
::t Grid strain, ~//
:t d =0 90 150 300 400(/~m)

~27 --Non-i
---Impact ~ " I
,5, . ~ / t
~18 1× 102)
20 (x t02)
14
t.9 20 "Non-impact Impact
Non-impact Impact ] 1 8 - e 2 Grids = 2 Grids
12 ~-" 1 6 - - o 3Grids o3Grids _
10 ® 2 Grids = 2 Grids [ O
o 3 Grids o 3 Grids ] 1,_. 4 Grids ......
8
• 4 Grids • 4 Grids . ~ ~1
6
.E 4
2
11-
'z" 01 m ' ' - - - - - 100 200 300 400 .:-
L~ -2 ° . . . . . _-
Distance from the crack tip, d (#m)

Fig. 15 Strain distribution around the crack tip area (HT-60 steel)
but that those for aop were larger in the case of the non-
impact fatigue than in the case of impact fatigue for the
two materials. In particular, in the case of SUS316 steel,
the interval between the displacements for aop and a ....
which corresponds to the effective crack opening displace-
ment, is twice as large for the crack formed by impact fatigue
load than for non-impact loading. In the case of HT-60
steel, the difference in the displacements was negligible. Con-
sequently, the large effective crack opening displacement be-
hind the crack tip observed only for SUS316 steel under
impact fatigue load may be another cause of the higher
crack growth rate shown in Fig. 8.
The displacement at ~ = 0, corresponding to the com-
pletely unloaded condition, takes a non-zero value near the
crack tip region for all cases. The value is about 1 ~m
in the case of non-impact fatigue for both the materials,
but it is twice as large after impact fatigue. Since the residual
tensile stress on the crack surface layers is one of the major
factors affecting the deformation at ~ = 0, this fact supports
the previous finding that the size of the deformed zone
at the crack tip is small in the case of impact fatigue compared
to that formed in non-impact fatigue.
Concentration of the residual stretch near
crack surfaces
In the preceding section, the microscopic crack opening be-
haviour under the two load conditions was discussed with
reference to the deformed zone size at the crack tip. In
this section, the intensity of the residual tensile stress behind
the crack tip is evaluated.
Figs 15 and 16 show the grid strains along cracks under
the two load conditions for the respective steels. The grid
strain was defined as the ratio of the deformation of the
grid intervals to the initial length. Therefore, it indicates
the degree of concentration of strain in the vicinity of the
crack surface when it is evaluated for different lengths /,
which were taken here to be 2, 3 and 4 grid intervals. The
unit grid interval was 10 lam for Fig. 15 and 9 p.m for
Fig. 16, as previously described. In these figures, round sym-
bols show the results in the case of non-impact fatigue,
and square symbols show those of impact fatigue. The results
for the short gauge length l are represented by the mean
measured values with the scatter range, since the measure-
ment error becomes large in the case of the short gauge
length.
In the upper part of each figure the gradients of the
grid strains are depicted as a function of the gauge length
/. The trend obseved is that the shorter the gauge length
l, the larger the grid strain; therefore, the residual strain
1120 200 300 400
Distance from the crack tip, d (/am)
Fig. 16 Strain distribution around the crack tip area (SUS316 steel)
is concentrated in thin surface layers with cracks. The strain
concentration is more evident for SUS 316 steel having a
large fracture elongation, but the two curves have the same
characteristics for this steel, regardless of the difference in
load patterns. As a result, both the grid strain and its concen-
tration are larger in the case of SUS316 steel than those
obtained for HT-60 steel, and their values are smaller as
a whole under impact fatigue load than under non-impact
load.
The results shown in Figs 13-16 indicate that both
the residual stress at the crack surface and its concentration
on the thin surface layer are smaller under impact fatigue
load than under non-impact fatigue load.
Conclusions
A series of crack growth tests under non-impact and impact
fatigue loads were carried out for two alloy steels, HT-60
and SUS316. Crack growth behaviour under two load condi-
tions was studied, especially from the view point of micro-
scopic crack opening stresses measured by means of the
fine grid method.
The major conclusions obtained in this study are sum-
marized as follows:
1) When compared on da/dN us AK graphs, no noticeable
difference was observed in the crack growth rate for
HT-60 steel under non-impact and impact fatigue loads,
while the results for SUS316 steel indicated that the
crack growth rate under impact fatigue load was higher
than that under non-impact loading.
2) Although the crack opening ratio under impact fatigue
load was slightly less than that under non-impact fatigue
loading for both materials, such a difference in macro-
scopic crack opening behaviour is not enough to explain
the difference in fatigue crack growth behaviours of
two materials under impact fatigue load.
3) The difference in crack growth rates of the two steels
can be correlated with the microscopic crack opening
behaviour; in the case of SUS316 steel, both the effective
stress intensity range at the crack tip and the effective
crack opening displacement behind the crack tip were
larger for the crack propagated under repeated impact
load than those under non-impact load, but in the case
of HT-60 steel, the difference in those values was very
small.
4) Further observations of microscopic crack opening be-
haviours indicated that the residual tensile stress and

122 Int J Fatigue March 1989

 its concentration near the crack surface under impact
fatigue load were smaller than those under non-impact
fatigue load. As a result of these observations, it is sug-
gested that the size of the deformed crack tip zone is
significantly smaller under impact loading than under
non-impact loading.
References
1. Murakami, R. end Akizono, K. J Japanese $oc Strength
Fracture Mater16 (1981) pp 47-58
2. Nakayama, H., Kanayama, Y. and Tanaka, T. Bull JSME
28 (1983) pp 1453-1460
3. Nakayama, H., Kanayama. Y., 8hikida, M. and Tanaka,
T. BulIJSME27 (1984) pp 854-861
4. Nakayama, H., Kanayama, Y., Shikida, M. and Tanaka,
T. TransJapan Soc Mech Eng 50 (1984) pp 560-566
Int J Fatigue March 1989
5. Tanaka, T., Nakayama, H. end Kimura, K. Fatigue Fract
Engng Mater Struct 8 (1985) pp 13-22
6. Tanaka, T., Fukuchi, Y. JSoc Mater Sci Japan 34 (1985)
pp 554-500
7. Kishimoto, K., Wakabayuhi, T., Aoki, $. and Sakata,
M. J Soc Mater Japan 31 (1982) pp 478-482
8. Tada, H. EngngFractMech3(1971) pp 345-347
9. Nakayama, H. and Tanaka, T. Int J Fract 28 (1984) R19-
R24
Authors
Dr T. Tanaka and Mr K. Kinoshita are with the Faculty
of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Kita-ku,
Kyoto-shi, 603 Japan, and Dr H. Nakayama is with the Faculty
of the Junior College of Automobile Industry, Osaka Indus-
trial University, Nakagaito, Daito-shi, Osaka, 574 Japan.
Enquiries should be addressed to Mr K. Kinoshita.
123