Influence of material's cyclic deformation behaviour on fatigue crack growth threshold

To investigate the relation between material's cyclic plastic behaviour and fatigue crack growth, a new model is proposed. The model incorporated the two intrinsic properties of material's cyclic plastic and crack tip's deformation dislocation to interpret fatigue crack threshold. The relation between material's cyclic hardening parameters (cyclic hardening amplitude and cyclic hardening rate) and fatigue threshold is studied. Fatigue threshold is determined based on the dislocation-free zone (DFZ) model, the theory of cohesive zone and the cyclic deformation behaviour. The results show that fatigue threshold increases with the decrease of the amplitude of cyclic hardening and is independent of cyclic hardening rate, but fatigue crack growth rate increases with the increase of cyclic hardening rate.