Plastic Strain Distribution at the Tips of Propagating Fatigue Cracks

The techniques of selected area electron channeling and positive replica examination have been used to study the plastic zones attending fatigue crack propagation in 304 SS, 6061-T6 aluminum alloy, and Fe-3Si steel. These observations allowed the strain distribution at the crack tip to be determined. The results indicate that the concepts of a monotonic and a cyclic plastic zone are essentially correct, with the strains at demarcation between these two zones being 3 to 6 percent. Strain distribution varies as r^−1/2 in the cyclic zone and as ln r in the monotonic plastic zone. The strain distributions for all materials studied may be made approximately coincident by using a dimensionless parameter related to distance from the crack tip.