The application of surface science to fatigue: The role of surface chemistry and surface modification in fatigue crack initiation in silver single crystals

Quantitative in Situ SEM High Cycle Fatigue: The Critical Role of Oxygen on Nanoscale-Void-Controlled Nucleation and Propagation of Small Cracks in Ni Microbeams

This Letter presents a quantitative in situ scanning electron microscope (SEM) nanoscale high and very high cycle fatigue (HCF/VHCF) investigation of Ni microbeams under bending, using a MEMS microresonator as an integrated testing machine. The novel technique highlights ultraslow fatigue crack growth (average values down to ∼10^-14 m/cycle) that has heretofore not been reported and that indicates a discontinuous process; it also reveals strong environmental effects on fatigue lives that are 3 orders of magnitude longer in a vacuum than in air. This ultraslow fatigue regime does not follow the well documented fatigue mechanisms that rely on the common crack tip stress intensification, mediated by dislocation emission and associated with much larger crack growth rates. Instead, our study reveals fatigue nucleation and propagation mechanisms that mainly result from room temperature void formation based on vacancy condensation processes that are strongly affected by oxygen. This study therefore shows significant size effects governing the bending high/very high cycle fatigue behavior of metals at the micro- and nanoscales, whereby the stress concentration effect at the tip of a growing small fatigue crack is assumed to be greatly reduced by the effect of the bending-induced extreme stress gradients, which prevents any significant cyclic crack tip opening displacement. In this scenario, ultraslow processes relying on vacancy formation at the subsurface or in the vicinity of a crack tip and subsequent condensation into voids become the dominant fatigue mechanisms.

Role of surfaces and interfaces in controlling the mechanical properties of metallic alloys

This article explores the subtle effects of surfaces and interfaces on the mechanical properties of bulk metallic alloys using three examples: environmental effects on fatigue life, hydrogen embrittlement effects on the ductility of intermetallics, and the role of coherent precipitates in the toughness of steels. It is demonstrated that the marked degradation of the fatigue life of metals is due to the strong chemisorption of adsorbates on exposed slip steps that are formed during fatigue deformation. These adsorbates reduce the reversibility of slip, thus accelerating fatigue damage in a chemically active gas environment. For certain intermetallic alloys such as Ni(3)Al and Ni(3)Fe, the ductility depends on the ambient gas composition and the atomic ordering in these alloys, both of which govern the complex surface chemical reactions taking place in the vicinity of crack tips. Finally, it is shown that local stresses at a coherent precipitate-matrix interface can activate dislocation motion at low temperatures, thus improving the fracture toughness of bulk alloys such as steels at cryogenic temperatures. These examples illustrate the complex interplay between surface chemistry and mechanics, often yielding unexpected results.