Small fatigue crack propagation in Y2O3 strengthened steels

This paper is focused on two type of Y2O3 strengthened steels (Fe-14Cr ODS and ODS-EUROFER). Small fatigue crack propagation was experimentally measured using special small cylindrical specimens (diameter 2 and 2.6 mm) with shallow notch grinded in the gauge length. In the middle of this notch, a pre-crack of length of 50 μm was fabricated using a focused ion beam technique. Fatigue crack growth rate was measured for different applied total strain amplitudes and described using plastic part of the J-integral. Obtained results were compared with published data of EUROFER 97. The effect of the oxide dispersion on small fatigue crack propagation was found rather insignificant. Ferritic Fe-14Cr ODS steel shows more brittle behaviour, i.e. for the same cyclic plasticity, characterised by the plastic part of the J-integral, the small cracks grow faster. A new methodology for residual lifetime prediction of structures containing physically small cracks, based on plastic part of the J-integral, is presented.