Evaluation of residual stress relaxation and its effect on fatigue strength of AISI 316L stainless steel ground surfaces: Experimental and numerical approaches

This paper is aimed at evaluating the residual stress relaxation and its effect on the fatigue strength of AISI 316L steel ground surfaces in comparison to electro-polished surfaces. An experimental evaluation was performed using 3-point and 4-point bending fatigue tests at Rr = 0.1 on two sets of notched spec-imens finished by electro-polishing and grinding. The residual stress fields were measured at the notch root of specimens, before and after fatigue tests, by means of the X-ray diffraction technique. It was found a degradation of about 35% for the 4-point bending fatigue limit at 2 106 cycles of the ground spec-imens in comparison to the electro-polished ones. This degradation is associated with a slight relaxation of the grinding residual stresses which remain significant tensile stresses at the stabilized state. While under the 3-point bending test, these residual stresses relax completely and provoke a noticeable increase of the fatigue limit estimated at about 50% in comparison to the 4-point bending fatigue test. The numerical evaluation of residual stress relaxation was carried out by FE analyses of the cyclic hard-ening behaviour of the ground layer. The isotropic and nonlinear kinematic model proposed by Chaboche was used and calibrated for the base material and the ground layer. The results show that residual stres-ses relax to a stabilized state characterized by elastic-shakedown response. This stabilization is occurred after the first cycle of the 4-point bending test corresponding to the higher stress concentration (Kt- 4p = 1.66), while it requires many cycles under the 3-point bending test corresponding to the lower stress concentration (Kt-3p = 1.54). The incorporation of stabilized residual stress values into the Dang Van’s cri-terion has permitted to predict with an acceptable accuracy the fatigue limits under both bending modes

Influences of up-milling and down-milling on surface integrity and fatigue strength of X160CrMoV12 steel

This paper aims to compare the influences of the two peripheral milling modes, up-milling and down-milling, on surface integrity and fatigue strength of X160CrMoV12 high-alloy steel. The experimental investigations showed an important difference between integrity of both milled surfaces. The down-milled surface is lowly work-hardened and well finished (lower roughness), but subjected to tensile residual stresses and severely damaged by folds of metal and short micro-cracks. The up-milled surface is highly work-hardened and subjected to compressive residual stresses, but poorly finished (higher roughness) and damaged by a density of micro-cavities due to carbide extraction. The results of 3-point bending fatigue tests revealed that the fatigue limit at 2 × 106 cycles of the up-milled state is largely higher of about 26% in comparison with the down-milled state. The effects of surface integrity induced by each milling mode on fatigue strength were evaluated using a HCF behaviour predictive approach based on Dang Van’s multiaxial criterion. The predictive results estimated that the pre-existing micro-cracks play a dominant role in the fatigue strength degradation of the down-milled surface while the other surface effects seem to be lower. On the contrary, the fatigue strength of the up-milled surface is less affected by the pre-existing micro-cavities. The detrimental roughness effect (stress concentration effect) is significantly reduced by the beneficial effects of superficial hardening and compressive residual stresses. So, this study revealed that up-milling is the more appropriate mode for a better surface integrity towards fatigue strength of X160CrMoV12 steel than the down-milling mode