Fatigue crack growth resistance of ECAPed ultrafine-grained copper

This work presents the experimental results of fatigue crack growth resistance of ultrafine-grained (UFG) copper. The UFG copper has a commercial purity level (99.90%) and an average grain size of 300 nm obtained by a 8-passes route Bc ECAP process. The fatigue propagation tests are conducted in air, at load ratios R = Kmin/Kmax varying from 0.1 to 0.7, on small Disk Shaped CT specimens. Both stage I and stage II regime of growth rate are explored. Results are partially in contrast with the few experimental data available in the technical literature, that are by the way about high purity UFG copper. In fact, the present material shows a relatively high fatigue crack resistance with respect to the unprocessed coarse-grained alloy, especially at high values of applied stress intensity factor ΔK. At higher R-ratio a smaller threshold intensity factor is found, together with a lower stage II fatigue crack growth rate. The explanation of such crack growth retardation is based on a diffuse branching mechanism observed especially at higher average ΔK.