Module 8, Objectives 5 and 6

(Part 2 of 2)
Fatigue, Creep, and Wear, pg. 45-47, 54-58

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Objectives
• Identify the various failure modes that may occur in materials.
• Characterize the features of each failure mode.

1) Ductile Fracture
2) Brittle Fracture
3) Fatigue
4) Creep “Progressive failure”
5) Corrosion/Wear/Distortion

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Fatigue
• Fatigue fractures have a transgranular, brittle appearance
• No plastic deformation
• Caused by repeated alternating stress
• “Cyclic stress”
• Ex: wings on a plane, teeth on a gear, breaking a wire by repeated bending
• Occurs at a low level of stress
• Below the UTS of the material, often below the yield strength!
• Important factors:
• “S”, the level of stress
• Higher stress will need less cycles to cause failure.
• Stress concentration is a huge contributor to fatigue failure!
• “N”, the number of load cycles
• Larger number of cycles is more likely to cause failure
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 Fatigue: The S-N Curve
• S is the level of stress and N is the number of load cycles
• Just below the UTS,
FAILURE ZONE
failure will occur with very
UTS few cycles.
• The endurance limit (AKA
SAFE ZONE
“fatigue threshold”) is the
Yield highest stress that will not
cause failure no matter
the number of cycles.
• Or, the stress that survives a
required number of cycles (107)

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Titanium bike frame, fatigue test 100,000 cycles
Fatigue Mechanism
Fatigue is caused by alternating stages of work hardening, then cracking…
• High stress exists
• Above the endurance limit
• A region of stress concentration exists
• Ex: base of a gear tooth, threading on a bolt, surface damage, sharp corner, etc.
• The stress is high enough at the tip of the notch to cause a small amount of
plastic deformation.
• This causes some work hardening! The notch tip becomes slightly more brittle.
• Each cycle causes more deformation and more work hardening…
• Eventually the material is brittle enough that the next cycle causes it to crack!
• Breaks through just the brittle work hardened region, then is stopped by the ductile material
• Creates a “beach mark”
• Crack tip is now in a new ductile area, so the whole process starts again…
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Fatigue Features (pg.54)
• Usually starts at the surface
• bending stress is highest and
notch effects are common

• Creates “beach marks” while

being fatigued

• Eventually cuts through

enough material that
remaining material fails due to
overload (brittle or ductile)
 Beach Marks/Striations
• Each cycle creates a “striation”, like a
microscopic beach mark
• Only visible with an SEM

• Beach marks are macroscopic, and

form when the propagation of fatigue
fracture is interrupted.
• Ductile material temporarily arrests the
crack propagation
• Each beach mark is created by one
stress cycle, but each stress cycle may
not create a beach mark
• The crack tip needs to work harden
enough to allow the crack to break
through
 Overload Where did the crack start?
Region
How did the crack grow?
Where was the last part to fail?

Beach Marks
➢ Note the increase in spacing as the
crack progresses (less remaining
material = increase in stress)
Origin
What can we say about the amount of loading
on this piece?
• Fatigue did initiate this failure, so load must
have been below UTS
• Very large overload region indicates that not
much material loss was required before the
UTS was reached!
• Originally loaded close to the UTS
• We should use a better safety factor!

Bonus question: Was the final failure ductile

or brittle overload?
• Brittle, note the radial lines.
Why did this fatigue failure
start where it did?
Stress concentration at the
base of the gear tooth.
➢ Fatigue loves starting at
notches!
Higher stress at the notch
means less cycles to cause
cracking.

Gear tooth breakage: high cycle fatigue

Where does the fatigue start? Where is the overload failure?
Creep Failure
• Caused by high temperature slipping of grain boundaries under load
• Above half the melting point (in K), with load less than the yield strength
• Higher temperature results in less visible deformation in the fracture surface
since slipping is so much easier
• Oxidation and scaling due to high temperature
• Ductile intergranular fracture appearance

• Failure occurs when creep fissures are created

as voids at the grain boundaries
• Grains are pulled apart at “triple points”
➢“Orange Peeling” on the surface
Void formation at intersection of three grains
Three Stages of Creep (changing creep rate)

Stage 3:
Voids begin forming, increasing
creep rate. Voids coalesce (join
together) until failure occurs.

Stage 1:
Grains rotate to align themselves Stage 2:
in the direction of stress. Rotation Grains slide past each other at a
is easy, so creep rate is fast. slower rate. Dependent on the
stress level and temperature.
Intergranular Fracture!
Other Progressive Failures
1. Corrosion

2. Distortion

3. Wear
Distortion Failure
• A permanent change in shape or dimensions.

• Permanent distortion occurs when the yield strength of the metal is

exceeded.

Why would this be considered failure when it isn’t broken?

• Because it’s no longer fit for service.
Wear Failure
Wear failure can take the form of:
• adhesive wear (galling)
• abrasive wear (esp. surface oxides)
• erosion (e.g. water with suspended solids)
• fretting (small vibrations between mating parts)
• surface fatigue wear
• cavitation
• cavitation was covered previously in Objective 2, so won’t be discussed again
Adhesive Wear
• Adhesive wear (also known as galling) is caused by the microwelding
of surface asperities (roughness) under load.
• Due to sliding action, the surface of the welded junction tears and
wears.
• Heat generated by friction may escalate the wearing and tearing of
the metal.

Prevention?
➢ Use lubricants (doping agent)
 Abrasive Wear
• Abrasive wear is caused when a harder
surface applies a series of scratches in a
softer material

• In a three-body abrasive system, a hard

particle trapped between the rubbing
surfaces abrades the two surfaces.
• Ex: sand in a bearing
Erosion
Erosion occurs when liquid or solid particles in a moving fluid hit a
surface at high kinetic energy.
• Over time, a significant amount of material is removed from the
surface (surface is eroded).
The erosion rate depends on:
• material properties
• velocity of the particles
• angle of incidence
 Fretting and False Brinelling
Fretting is similar to adhesive wear, but occurs at stationary joints.
• Minute elastic deflections or vibrations with very small amplitudes
cause microwelding and tearing.

False Brinelling is fretting caused

by bearing contact with the race
• Lubricant must keep bearing
and race from touching
 Surface Fatigue
• Surface fatigue wear occurs where contact stresses are high, such as
gears and ball bearings.
• Due to loading cycles, cracks propagate towards the surface which
removes chunks of metal from the surface and leads to mechanical
pitting.
 Progressive Failures
Everything we’ve talked about here are examples of progressive failures,
slowly working their way through the thickness of our material.

Whether we’re talking about fatigue, creep,

corrosion or wear…
all of them progress slowly…
then finish with overload.
 Exercise 5 (pg. 47)
1. Identify the mode of failure most likely to occur in each condition
below, as well as how to avoid the failure.
a) Tensile test specimen of AISI 1040 HR steel.
b) Charpy test specimens of AISI 1020 full anneal steel at -70°C.
c) A component subjected to repeated cycles of stress.
d) A mild steel structure in seawater.
e) A pressure pipe operating at high temperature.

3. Define endurance limit.

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 Bonus Question
You are given a poor-quality photo of this
shaft’s fracture surface.

• What mechanism caused this failure?

• Where did the failure start, and in what

direction did it propagate?

• How was it loaded?

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 Bonus Question
You are given a poor-quality photo of this
shaft’s fracture surface.
• What mechanism caused this failure?
• The lines are beach marks; this was fatigue.
• Where did the failure start, and in what
direction did it propagate?
• The origin is on the two sides, with final

Overload
Region
overload failure in the center.

Origin
Origin
• The crack propagated from the surface to
the center.
• How was it loaded?
• Cyclic reverse bending caused this failure.
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Beach Marks