Experimental and three-dimensional finite element investigation of fatigue

Abstract

Materials often fail at cyclic loads that are lower than their ultimate strength or even their yield strength due to progressive internal material degradation; commonly known as fatigue. Moreover, there is a wide scatter in observed fatigue lives of mechanical components operating under identical loading conditions. The randomness of fatigue failure is considered to be linked to basic microstructural effects such as random microstructure topology and the initiation/growth of cracks along inter/transgranular planes. Several modeling approaches have been previously presented ranging from 2D discrete element to 3D Finite Element methods with explicit representation of microstructure topology and continuum damage mechanics to capture dispersion in rolling contact fatigue life and fatigue spalling. There is, however, a need to compare the modeling approach with experimental fatigue test conditions in order to verify and as required enhance the modeling approach to capture observed fatigue failure. This dissertation presents experimental test results and three-dimensional modeling approach that capture fatigue failure. The three-dimensional modeling approach is enhanced according to the experimental observations to consider inter/trans granular failure, different modes of fatigue initiation and propagation and finally for considering effect of plasticity in fatigue of rolling contacts. The following phenomena have been investigated: (1) Fatigue of microbeams: (a )Results of fatigue life and failure from 3D modeling of intergranular fatigue in microbeams are compared with experimental observations reported in literature (2) Tensile fatigue of thin sheets: (a) A test rig with a new grip and alignment system is developed to address the challenges associated with thin sheet testing and conduct fatigue experiments. (b) The 3D fatigue model is enhanced to capture the dominant transgranular fatigue observed in the experiments. The observed and modeled fatigue life and failure are compared. (3) Torsion fatigue of bearing steel variants: (a) Custom grips are developed and integrated with an MTS torsion test rig to undertake torsion testing of various bearing steel variants. (b) A model for torsional fatigue failure was developed and the experimental and numerical results are compared. (4) Rolling contact fatigue: (a) An improved 3D RCF model is developed which is computationally efficient and accurate compared to a previously published model. (b) The 3D fatigue model is enhanced to investigate the effects of plasticity and fatigue damage due to plastic strain accumulation on rolling contact fatigue