Crack Propagation

Fatigue cracks may propagate either from an existing flaw, such as an inclusion or

a defect in a weld, or they may grow from damage nucleated as part of the early stages of

fatigue itself. It is into this second category that fretting fatigue falls. The fretting process

must first initiate an embryo crack and then propagate it in order to produce a failure. The

life of a component suffering fretting fatigue may therefore be conveniently divided into

initiation and propagation phases. In contrast to plain fatigue the initiation phase of

fretting fatigue life is often, although not always, quite short. The objective of any

analysis of crack propagation is to predict the direction and rate of crack growth under

some known applied loading.

The life of a crack can be conveniently divided into a number of stages as shown

in fig 8.2, 171, hills nd nowel. In stage I crack growth takes place by shear deformation

in localized slip bands near the crack tip and the process is primarily controlled by shear.

Once the crack has reached a few grain diameters in size, transition to stage II behaviour

takes place. Here the crack grows primarily as a result of mode I loading at the crack tip,

and when plotted on logarithmic scales a linear relationship between growth rate and

applied stress intensity factor range ∆K is revealed. Eventually the crack reaches a third

stage of its life when the high ∆K values cause acceleration in the crack growth rate

towards failure. It is stage II behaviour which often dominates crack life and it is in this

regime that fracture mechanics is most useful in predicting crack growth rates. Although

the crack growth takes place by plastic deformation in a process zone at the crack tip the

characteristics of this zone are controlled by surrounding elastic field, and thus the elastic

stress intensity factors prove to be useful in predicting crack growth.

 Behaviour of fretting fatigue crack propagation

Fretting fatigue crack propagation takes place in two stages, i.e., stages I and II.

Stage I crack propagation is oblique to the fretted surface and the angle of inclination and

its depth depend up on the magnitude of normal pressure. The angle of inclination of the

oblique stage I crack decreases with increase in normal pressure and the depth of the

stage I crack increases as the normal pressure increases. Stage II crack propagation is

perpendicular to the applied fatigue stress. Fig 5, 130, papers book waterhouse.

Fretting fatigue cracks invariably suffer both modes of loading rather than pure

mode I. Descriptions of the thresholds for crack growth under mixed-mode loading are

less well established for mixed mode loading than for pure mode I loading, but Otsuka,

Mori and Miyata (1975) have presented possible criteria for both stage I and stage II

growth. Figure 8.19, 192, nowell and hills) depicts the proposed boundaries between the

different stages of crack growth in the ∆k I, ∆K II plane. Thus, a crack will experience

stage I or stage II growth according the values of ∆k I, and ∆K II experienced. A small

crack growing obliquely under the contact from the trailing edge, is acted upon by both

modes of loading but the mode I component will start to decrease as the zone of

compressive stresses under the centre of the contact is approached. This will result in a

trajectory similar to that labeled A in the ∆k I, ∆K II plane. If the crack closes (i.e. ∆k I

falls to zero) before the boundary for stage II growth is crossed (trajectory A) then the

crack will stop growing else the stage II boundary is crossed (trajectory B), then the crack

is likely to turn to pure mode I and propagate to failure

 Analysis of fretting fatigue cracks

Fretting fatigue cracks propagate under the influence of complex stress field

which is limited in extent, having dimensions of the same order as the contact itself. The

growth of a fretting fatigue crack in this region will clearly be dominated by this stress

complex field. Once the crack has grown beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the

contact, the influence of the contact stress field will have diminished to such a level that

the crack is propagating mainly under the influence of any bulk stresses caused by far

field loading, and the situation will be essentially one of plain fatigue. The analysis of

crack porpation in fretting fatigue is therefore concerned with the portion of crack life

from the time when the crack is longer than a few grain sizes until it is longer than a few

contact dimensions. In many situations this will encompass a considerable proportion of

component life, but there are occasions (such as when the grain size is large, or the

contact dimension is small) where a liner elastic analysis of crack propagation under the

influence of the contact stress field is inappropriate. In cases where LEFM can be

applied, the problem of analyzing crack propagation reduces to that of determining the

variation of stress intensity factors at the crack tip during the cyclic loading. The rate of

crack propagation then is estimated using Paris Law data for material. A basic assumption

of LEFM is that crack propagation can be characterized by the stress intensity factors

alone. It is therefore impossible for the crack to respond to any peculiarity of surface

conditions, except via the stress intensity factors, and fretting fatigue simply becomes

plain fatigue under a complex stress field.

 In analyzing the fretting fatigue crack, it is important to consider a number of

features of the fretting problem which render determination of stress intensity factors

more demanding than for most other crack problems.

 Fretting fatigue cracks exist in a rapidly varying contact stress field. The

analysis method must be able to cope with the steep stress gradients

existing in the material.

 The normal contact load leads to compressive stresses, so that at some

stage of loading cycle crack closure is likely to occur and not necessarily

at the crack tip. Some means of detecting and accounting for crack face

closure must be incorporated.

 Fretting fatigue is primarily a near-surface phenomenon, and it is in this

region the residual stresses caused by machining processes or surface

treatments predominate. The stresses can be quite high, and may well

influence crack propagation since, although they do not vary cyclically,

the will affect the degree of crack closure experienced by an open crack.

 The near surface nature means that, in many cases, only a single

component boundary affects crack tip conditions during the portion of the

crack’s life in which fretting plays a significant part. This means that a

degree of simplification can be achieved without loss of accuracy by

employing a half-plane or half-sphere formulation.

 Experimentally, fretting fatigue cracks are often found to exhibit a sharp

kink at some point along their length, and it should be possible to

incorporate this feature into the analysis.