Fatigue Crack Growth Behaviour and Role of Roughness-Induced Crack Closure in CP Ti: Stress Amplitude Dependence

This paper investigated the fatigue crack propagation mechanism of CP Ti at various stress amplitudes (175, 200, 227 MPa). One single crack at 175 MPa and three main cracks via sub-crack coalescence at 227 MPa were found to be responsible for fatigue failure. Crack deflection and crack branching that cause roughness-induced crack closure (RICC) appeared at all studied stress amplitudes; hence, RICC at various stages of crack propagation (100, 300 and 500 mu m) could be quantitatively calculated. Noticeably, a lower RICC at higher stress amplitudes (227 MPa) for fatigue cracks longer than 100 mu m was found than for those at 175 MPa. This caused the variation in crack growth rates in the studied conditions.