Acta mater.

49 (2001) 3755–3765
www.elsevier.com/locate/actamat

AFM CHARACTERIZATION OF THE EVOLUTION OF SURFACE

DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE IN POLYCRYSTALLINE
COPPER
L. CRETEGNY1‡ and A. SAXENA2†
1
GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady, NY, USA and 2School of Materials Science and Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0245, USA

( Received 27 December 2000; received in revised form 6 July 2001; accepted 6 July 2001 )

Abstract—Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a relatively new tool that readily provides high resolution
digitized images of surface features. AFM is used here to study the development of slip bands and protrusions
in strain controlled fatigue tests on polycrystalline copper at 0.161 and 0.255% strain amplitudes. The average
slip band heights at failure for both strain amplitudes conditions are comparable, implying that the growth
of slip bands saturates at a specific height. A parameter, γirrev, is defined that is a measure of the local slip
irreversibility at the surface and is applicable to any type of surface deformation feature, independently of
the size of the fields of view. Thus, estimates of surface deformation developed in regions where fatigue
crack nucleation is likely to occur can be obtained, from which a fatigue crack nucleation criterion is defined.
 2001 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Résumé—La microscopie à force atomique (AFM) est un outil qui permet l’obtention d’images digitales à
haute résolution d’éléments de déformation de la surface et leur analyse quantitative. Cette technique est
utilisée ici pour étudier le dévelopement de bandes de glissements et de protrusions lors d’essais de fatigue
en déformation contrôlée sur du cuivre polycristallin à des amplitudes de déformation relative de 0.161 et
0.255%. Pour les deux conditions d’essais, la hauteur moyenne des bandes de glissement après rupture était
comparable, ce qui signifie que la croissance des bandes de glissements sature à une certaine hauteur. Un
paramètre, γirrev, est défini comme mesure de glissements locaux irréversibles en surface. Ce paramètre est
indépendant de la taille du champ de vision et fournit des informations sur la distribution de la déformation
de surface le long de la section calibrée, y compris des régions susceptibles de développer des fissures. 
2001 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Atomic force microscopy (AFM); Copper; Fatigue; Slip bands; Crack nucleation

1. INTRODUCTION fatigue mechanisms were obtained from the study of

Fatigue crack initiation and crack growth are the two
main stages in the life of cyclically loaded structures.
Following the formation of a macro-crack, crack
growth and the occurrence of failure can be predicted
by fracture mechanics. Even though engineering
models are available for predicting crack initiation,
damage evolution that leads to the formation of a
macro-crack is difficult to predict, because no easily
measurable parameter uniquely describes the state of
damage during this stage.
Most significant advances in the understanding of
† To whom all correspondence should be addressed. Tel.:
+1-404-894-2888; fax: +1-404-894-9140.
E-mail address: ashok.saxena@mse.gatech.edu (A.
Saxena)
‡ Formerly Graduate Research Assistant in the School of
Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of
Technology
dislocation arrangements in copper single crystals.
Since fatigue crack nucleation is a surface phenom-
enon, fatigue damage is most likely better charac-
terized by changes on the surface rather than by alter-
ations in the interior of the material. Various concepts
have been introduced to explain the formation of
extrusions and intrusions based on either the glide of
dislocations out of the crystal or the accumulation of
point defects in the bulk [1–6]. When large clusters
of extrusions and intrusions form, they are referred to
as macro-PSBs and form either positive or negative
protrusions, which have also been called encroach-
ments.
In polycrystalline copper, dislocation arrangements
are similar to those that develop in single crystals.
However, due to the constraint between grains, slip
readily occurs on multiple slip systems and results in
three-dimensional networks of dislocations even at
low strain amplitudes. The detailed analysis of the

1359-6454/01/$20.00  2001 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 9 - 6 4 5 4 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 2 7 1 - 3
3756 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
mechanisms involved in fatigue deformation and
crack nucleation is more difficult for polycrystalline
materials than for single crystals. Theories by
Essmann and colleagues [4, 5] and Tanaka and Mura
[8] provide some insight on the interaction between
PSB and grain boundaries leading to crack nucleation.
These models predict that high applied strain ampli-
tudes and large grain sizes favor the formation of
intergranular cracks, and low strain amplitudes and
small grain sizes promote the development of trans-
granular cracks in copper. However, when an
environment is factored, intergranular cracking can
also be rationalized at smaller grain sizes and low
strain amplitudes because of the quasi-brittleness of
the process associated with oxidation of copper. In
fact, intergranular cracks have been observed in cop-
per for a wide range of applied strain amplitude and
grain sizes [5, 9–12].
The potential of high resolution devices capable of
quantitatively describing the surface topography, such
as scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic
force microscopy (AFM), was discovered in the mid
1990s and used for accurately measuring the height
of surface features in various materials [13–19].
Quantitative parameters were defined from these
measurements to describe the state of surface defor-
mation, such as the average slip distance [13] or the
ratio of the average height to the average spacing
between the surface features [14] and root mean
square (RMS) height of the surface [16]. A direct
relationship exists between these parameters and the
average accumulation of surface plastic strain, which
was exploited in these studies to determine the irre-
versibility of slip at the surface. Although, the use
of average values of surface parameters is correct to
describe the general state of surface damage, the
extension of their use to the determination of the
onset of the nucleation of fatigue cracks, which is by
nature a heterogeneous process, is beyond the capa-
bilities of such parameters. The objective of this study
is to exploit the capabilities of AFM to accurately
perform an analysis which takes into account length,
height, count and orientation of the surface features
over a significant portion of cyclically loaded copper
specimens. This will provide the basis necessary for
the development of a model describing the evolution
of the topography that can be used for determining the
onset of fatigue crack nucleation based on physical
observations of the surface. The subsequent appli-
cation of this model to cyclically loaded components
has the potential to evaluate, from actual surface
measurements, how much of their fatigue life is spent.
2. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
Strain controlled fatigue tests were performed on
high purity C101 grade polycrystalline copper
(OFHC) with an average grain size of about 40 µm
(estimated by the mean intercept length method).
Standard axial fatigue specimens were machined with
a gage diameter of 8.9 mm (0.35 in) and the surface
was prepared by a combination of mechanical and
chemical polish. The fatigue tests were performed at
a constant strain rate of 0.005 s⫺1 and a stress ratio
R = ⫺1, with strain amplitudes of 0.161 and 0.255%
that yielded fatigue lives of 75 900 cycles and 6900
cycles with total cumulative plastic strains of 184 and
79, respectively. Several tests were performed at both
strain amplitudes with interruptions at fractions of life
of 0.5 and 0.9 for the 0.161% amplitude and at 0.25
for the 0.255% strain amplitude. Mechanical tests
were followed by sectioning of the specimens for
post-test observations by SEM and AFM. The AFM
used in this study was an Aris-3500 with a long range
scanning module METRIS-3070. Due to the curva-
ture of the fatigue specimens and the limited vertical
range of the AFM (about 7 µm), the fields of view
(FOV) were limited to 30×30 µm2. About twenty
scans were analyzed along the length and at several
positions around the circumference of each specimen.
The collection of AFM images was submitted to a
verification procedure described elsewhere [20] to
ensure that the area covered by the AFM scans was
representative of the whole surface. If the statistical
requirements were not met, that is, the area covered
was deemed too small, additional AFM scans were
obtained.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the following, the various surface features of
fatigued specimens of copper are first identified by
SEM and broad set of AFM measurements are also
described. This allows us to place our results in con-
text of previously published results on copper.
Detailed AFM results follow this preliminary dis-
cussion and lead to the development of a formalism
to quantitatively characterize the surface deformation.
3.1. Observation of surface damage
The most common occurrence of surface defor-
mation in cyclically loaded polycrystalline copper is
in the form of slip bands regularly distributed within
grains. An example of a typical arrangement of slip
bands covering the entire width of a large surface
grain in copper is shown in Fig. 1, taken from a speci-
men tested at 0.161% strain amplitude. In general, it
was observed that the majority of the slip bands are
extrusions and only a few intrusions are visible. From
AFM measurements, the height of slip bands was
found to vary between 30 and 900 nm, with an aver-
age height at about 200 nm. The highest slip bands
were found exclusively at the latest stages of life,
while small bands were present at all life fractions.
This suggests that both the creation of new slip bands
and their growth occur throughout the fatigue life.
The measured heights of the extrusions in polycrys-
talline copper do not compare with those observed in
single crystals, which were on average between 3 and
4 µm high [5, 7, 21, 22]. The smaller slip band sizes
 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
Fig. 1. Typical arrangement of slip bands at the surface of a large grain in cyclically loaded polycrystalline
copper at 0.161% strain amplitude. (b) The magnified region within the square shown in (a).
in polycrystalline material is, however, not contradic-
tory to the findings on single crystals, because the
amount of material available below the surface to cre-
ate the upset is far less than the entire specimen thick-
ness and width that is available for single crystals.
As previously mentioned, the development of slip
bands in a given grain depends on the orientation of
the active slip systems within that grain. However, if
no active slip system is oriented towards the surface
of the material or if the interaction of the several slip
systems creates a three-dimensional arrangement of
dislocations (e.g. cellular of labyrinth structure)
which prevents the development of large scale slip
along a single band, surface upsets cannot form and
a smooth grain surface is observed. Fig. 2 clearly
illustrates this phenomenon, where some grains have
fully developed sets of slip bands while the neighbor-
ing grains have little or no surface deformation.
In this study, slip bands were observed at both
applied strain amplitudes, although towards the end
of the fatigue life in 0.255% strain amplitude tests,
protrusions became the dominant form of surface
Fig. 2. Distribution of slip bands of various orientations and
densities among the different grains, which shows regions
where no surface deformation has occurred (⌬⑀/2 = 0.255%).
3757
damage with considerable bulging of the surface
(about 1 µm) (Fig. 3). The width of the measured
protrusions was between 10 and 20 µm, creating a
height to width ratio smaller than measured in single
crystals [7, 9]. This is consistent with findings on cop-
per single crystals by Hunsche and Neumann [7] that
showed a decrease in the height of the protrusions
with a reduction of the thickness of the single crys-
tals, explained by availability of less material to pro-
duce the upset. In the present study, the term pro-
trusion is used when PSBs occupy the greater part of
a grain and the density of the slip bands forming the
PSB has reached a high enough level that no band of
matrix is visible between the slip bands.
3.2. AFM analysis of surface features
As mentioned earlier, slip bands are the primary
form of surface damage and towards the end of life
at the higher strain amplitude (0.255%) protrusions
are also observed. In this section, these features are
quantitatively analyzed and, since they all evolve
from the same surface deformation mechanism, no
distinction is made between them. For instance, a pro-
trusion consisting of ten slip bands is treated as a
group and individual dimensions of slip bands are
computed as the average value for the protrusion.
Three measures of surface damage evolution were
considered that include: (a) the length of slip bands;
Fig. 3. AFM image of a protrusion in polycrystalline copper
(⌬⑀/2 = 0.255%). The vertical scale is indicated on the right of
the image in nanometers.
3758 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
(b) the number of slip bands; and (c) the height of
slip bands.
Figure 4(a) provides the average length of slip
bands at a strain amplitude of 0.161% at various frac-
tions of life and shown as a function of the angle
that the slip bands form with the loading axis. This
representation was chosen to highlight the possible
influence that the orientation of the trace of the slip
systems with the loading axis might have on the sur-
face features. One notices from Fig. 4(a) that the aver-
age length of slip bands does not vary substantially
with orientation or with the number of cycles. This
correlates with the earlier observation that slip bands
cover the entire width of a grain and hence cannot
grow further. This, along with the fact that slip bands
may be truncated by the edge of the FOV and appear
shorter than they actually are, restricts the capacity
of the average length of slip bands to be used as a
representative parameter of surface deformation in
polycrystals. On the other hand, the number of slip
Fig. 4. Distribution of (a) the average slip band length, (b) the
number of slip bands and (c) the average height of slip bands
in polycrystalline copper tested at 0.161%.
bands per unit area is not subject to the same draw-
backs and is therefore a suitable surface damage para-
meter, as shown in Fig. 4(b). For additional infor-
mation on the evolution of surface deformation, the
average height of the slip bands as a function of their
orientation with the loading axis is also computed,
Fig. 4(c). The behavior for the strain amplitude of
0.255% was similar and was therefore not included
in the figures.
From Fig. 4(b), one notices a strong influence of
the angle of orientation on the number of slip bands.
At both strain amplitudes, the number of slip bands
is much greater at angles between 30° and 80° with
the loading axis. Although these angles do not corre-
spond to the actual orientations of the active slip sys-
tems, they are consistent with favorable slip orien-
tations for the fulfillment of the Schmid law. Indeed,
the trace of a plane oriented at 45° with the longitudi-
nal axis of a cylinder assumes a range of orientations
comprised between 45° and 90° around the circumfer-
ence. This explains the orientations of slip bands
⬎45°. On the other hand, slip bands oriented closer
than 45° to the loading axis do not belong to a favor-
ably oriented slip plane and must therefore be the
result of constraint from neighboring grains that
locally disturbs the local strain and stress fields.
At 0.161% strain amplitude, the number of slip
bands is not measurably affected by the number of
cycles between N/Nf = 0.5 and 0.9, but increases
between N/Nf = 0.9 and 1. The increase in the number
of slip bands between half-life and failure is only
30%, which may imply that the multiplication of slip
bands is not the leading mechanism of fatigue damage
evolution. On the other hand, the height of the slip
bands is affected more significantly by the increase
in number of cycles, Fig. 4(c). At half-life, an average
height of about 180 nm is measured for all orien-
tations. It is noted from Fig. 4(c) that slip bands with
orientations between 45° and 90° with the loading
axis reach heights of about 250 nm at N/Nf = 0.9 and
up to 400 nm at failure. This tends to show that the
height of the slip bands is a good indicator of fatigue
damage evolution. This is justified by the theory that
slip bands create sharp discontinuities at the surface
that cause the stress concentration responsible for
crack nucleation and the higher the upset, the larger
the stress concentration. However, the transgranular
cracks that one would expect from these stress con-
centrations, and are observed in single crystals at the
edges of PSBs, were not present here. On the other
hand, based on surface observations, it is believed
that critical conditions that lead to crack nucleation
arise from the development of a large number of slip
bands with significant height in a grain adjacent to a
grain with little surface strain. It was shown above
how important the orientation of the active slip sys-
tem relative to the load axis is on the development of
slip bands and adjacent grains may have significantly
different lattice orientations, leading to a severe mis-
match in the surface strains between the neighboring
 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
grains, for example, Fig. 2, that is accompanied by
residual stresses. These, in turn, favor crack
nucleation along the grain boundary according to the
mechanisms proposed by Essmann et al. [4, 5] or
Tanaka and Mura [8]. This issue is further dis-
cussed below.
At 0.255% strain amplitude, the height of the slip
bands was not significantly affected by the orientation
of the slip bands relative to the loading axis for angles
of 30° and beyond. The average height at
N/Nf = 0.25 is 108 nm, which shows that a significant
growth occurs early in the fatigue life, and the height
then increases to 247 nm at failure. The latter com-
pares well to the average height of 271 nm obtained
at failure for the 0.161% strain amplitude. That value
is significantly smaller than the several µm measured
on single crystals, a fact that actually supports the
theory by Essmann et al. [4] that relates the surface
roughness to point defect formation in the bulk, which
is limited by the size of the grains in polycrystals. As
a result, the growth of slip bands in polycrystalline
copper with grains on average 40 µm in diameter
seems to saturate at a height of about 250 nm.
The number of slip bands per unit area at the
0.255% strain amplitude on the other hand is affected
by the slip band orientation and is about three times
larger than at 0.161% strain amplitude. The signifi-
cantly larger number of slip bands at the higher strain
amplitude is due to two factors that are inter-related.
First, because of the higher applied stress and the dis-
ruption of the stress field by adjacent grains that are
undergoing deformation, the resolved shear stress of
slip systems not ideally oriented may reach levels
high enough to cause plastic deformation, hence
increasing the number of active slip planes. In
addition, the formation of protrusions as shown in
Fig. 3 occurs at this strain amplitude and their high
slip band density increases the number of slip bands.
The characteristics of protrusions are discussed next.
3.3. Protrusions versus slip bands
Figure 5 compares total count and length of stand-
alone slip bands versus those that are part of pro-
trusions at a strain amplitude of 0.255%. A total of
638 and 808 slip bands at N/Nf = 0.25 and 1, respect-
ively, were measured. Early in the fatigue life, surface
upset occurs principally in the shape of slip bands,
with protrusions covering only 10% of the total sur-
face upset in count and length, Fig. 5(a). The presence
of protrusions at this stage shows that their formation
is uniquely related to the magnitude of the strain
amplitude and not, for instance, to the cumulative
plastic strain or the height of the slip bands them-
selves that are actually larger at the lower strain
amplitude which did not produce any protrusions.
At failure, the proportion of protrusions to slip
bands is 1:1 in terms of both number and length of
slip bands, Fig. 5(b). However, protrusions within
them contain a much higher density of slip bands than
regular arrangements of slip bands and the area
3759
Fig. 5. Comparison of the characteristics of protrusions and
stand-alone slip bands at (a) quarter-life and (b) failure
(⌬⑀/2 = 0.255%). The charts on the left indicate the relative
distribution of protrusions and slip bands as a function of the
angle with loading axis and, on the right, the fraction of the
total count and length of each feature is shown.
covered by protrusions is hence overall smaller than
the surface covered by an equivalent number of slip
bands. By combining the results of the proportion of
slip bands that are not part of protrusions and the total
number of all slip bands per unit area, one derives a
count of 0.9×0.035 = 0.032 slip bands per µm2 at
N/Nf = 0.25 and only 0.5×0.050 = 0.025 slip bands
per µm2 at failure for the slip bands that are not part
of protrusions, while the total number of all slip bands
per unit area actually increases from 0.035 to 0.050
µm⫺2. This decrease in the number of slip bands that
are not part of protrusions shows that protrusion for-
mation is an out-growth of a continuous process of
multiplication of active slip planes within existing
slip bands and not the growth of closely packed slip
bands due to cyclic deformation in a grain. In
addition, the fact that the distribution of the slip band
length in and out of protrusions follows closely the
count distribution, Fig. 5, indicates that protrusions
are formed in grains of any size. Indeed, if protrusion
formation was favored in larger grains and the num-
ber of slip bands in and out of protrusions was the
same, the fraction of the total length of slip bands
within protrusions would be proportionally larger,
which is not the case.
The orientations assumed by the protrusions are
within the standard range of 30–80° that has been
observed for surface features for fatigued copper in
this study. Very few protrusions have orientations
⬍45° with the loading axis, whereas an appreciable
quantity of slip bands assumed orientations as low as
30°. This implies that the formation of slip bands may
be enhanced by the effect of constraint from neighb-
oring grains and occur at various orientations with
the loading axis, but protrusions develop only on slip
planes that have a favorable orientation relative to the
loading axis to satisfy the Schmid law.
3760 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
3.4. Slip band spacing
The analysis of the spacing between slip bands
reveals an influence of the applied strain amplitude
on the distribution of slip bands at the surface, Fig.
6(a). Slip bands that are not part of protrusions are
separated on average by about 1.6 µm at the higher
strain amplitude and 2.3 µm at the lower strain ampli-
tude. This difference of about 25% does not change
throughout the fatigue life, as the average slip band
spacing remains constant at both strain amplitudes.
One has to note that these values correspond to aver-
ages and that spacings vary significantly from one
region to another.
At the 0.255% strain amplitude, the surface fea-
tures consist of either stand-alone slip bands or slip
bands that form protrusions. Obviously, the spacing
between them is strongly affected by this factor as it
drops from over 1.6 µm outside to less than 1 µm
inside protrusions, Fig. 6(b). Here again, the number
of cycles does not influence the spacing between slip
bands, as only a slight decline is measured throughout
the fatigue life. The smaller spacing between slip
bands illustrates the strong contribution of protrusions
towards the accumulation of dense surface defor-
mation.
3.5. Crack nucleation
Copper specimens cyclically loaded at 0.161 and
0.255% applied strain amplitudes show systematic
Fig. 6. Comparison of (a) the spacing between slip bands that
are not part of protrusions for 0.161% and 0.255% strain ampli-
tude and (b) the spacing between slip bands at the 0.255%
strain amplitude that stand alone (not part of protrusions) and
that are part of protrusions.
crack nucleation at the grain boundaries as shown in
Fig. 7. In almost every case, cracks initiate at the
boundary between one grain with considerable sur-
face upset and another grain that does not show much
trace of surface deformation. Intergranular cracks at
various strain amplitudes and grain sizes were already
reported by other authors mentioned earlier [5, 9–11].
Although not explicitly mentioned in those articles,
most of the micrographs of interest showed that inter-
granular crack nucleation occurred at the boundary
between two grains with significantly different
amounts of surface deformation, as is the case in the
present study. Incidentally, a study by Lin et al. [23]
showed that the propagation of slip bands from one
grain to another offers an alternative to crack
nucleation along grain boundaries by relieving
excessive stress at that location. They demonstrated
that this type of stress relief occurs only when the
adjacent crystals have favorable relative orientations.
These findings support the results from the current
study in which cracks form along grain boundaries
between grains that have a strong mismatch in their
respective amount of surface deformation. In con-
clusion, the mismatch in the deformation of two
neighboring grains seems to be the driving force for
the nucleation of an intergranular crack.
3.6. Derivation of the irreversible surface defor-
mation parameter
The above characterization by AFM of the features
that developed at the surface of copper fatigued speci-
mens consisted of count per unit area and average
length and height. The emphasis of this section is on
developing a single surface parameter that
encompasses the diversity of the above measurements
and can be used to determine a criterion for crack
nucleation.
For general applicability, a parameter that charac-
terizes surface deformation must be independent of
the type of surface features (e.g. slip bands,
extrusions, protrusions, streaks, etc.) and the size of
FOV. This is essential because the dimensions of the
features of fatigue damage can range from a few nan-
ometers up to several micrometers and different sizes
of FOVs are then needed to obtain statistically sig-
nificant results. Let us first consider the simple case
of a single crystal oriented for single slip, Fig. 8. If
pulled monotonically in tension, the crystal experi-
ences an irreversible deformation, δ, that can be mea-
sured by the surface step height and is directly related
to the applied plastic strain amplitude, γ, by the fol-
lowing relationship
d
g⫽ (1)
L
where L is the gauge length or length of the crystal
in this case. The magnitude of the strain may vary
if a different set of coordinates is chosen, or if the
 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
Fig. 7. Typical intergranular cracks that are formed in polycrystalline copper cyclically loaded at various strain
amplitudes. Cracks are usually formed at the boundary between one with grain with considerable surface upset
and another with much less visible deformation.
Fig. 8. Final crystal shape of a single crystal oriented for single
slip after (a) one half cycle and (b) one cycle if slip occurs
on an adjacent crystallographic plane in the reverse loading
direction.
emergence angle of the slip band changes. The above
definition of strain based on d, the normal displace-
ment of the surface deformation, was chosen because
it is readily measurable by AFM. The use of an
adequate geometric factor may improve the accuracy
of g, but the factor will most likely remain constant
throughout the fatigue life. Therefore, its omission, as
implied by equation (1), will not affect monitoring of
the relative changes of irreversible surface defor-
mation with fatigue cycles.
In the same crystal, if slip occurs in the reverse
loading direction on a different but parallel slip plane,
the final crystal shape may resemble that of Fig. 8(b)
and the residual plastic strain is then twice the amount
given in equation (1), even though the crystal seems
to have returned to its original shape at the macro-
scopic scale. According to Mura [24], slip occurs on
adjacent layers of materials in the forward and
reversed loading directions due to accumulation of
back stress, which contributes to the formation of sur-
face upset (e.g. slip bands) separated by regions with
no apparent slip. Subsequently, if n slip bands are
created by cyclic loading, the irreversible plastic
strain is given by
3761
冘
n
2|di|
i⫽1
girrev ⫽ . (2)
L
It is important to note that γirrev is an average of the
measurable irreversible deformation experienced by
the material over the gauge length L and not the
amount of strain within each slip band. Here, slip is
assumed to occur in the shape of slip bands, but the
same concept is applicable to other types of features
that create a surface step. The theory applies to all
forms of surface deformation features, because its
concept is simply based on the permanent defor-
mation of the surface that is the result of irreversible
plastic strain. The above definition of normalized sur-
face deformation is different from the one used by
Harvey et al. [14], which was given by the ratio of
the average height to the average spacing between
slip bands. The latter is actually a measure of the
average strain contained within the slip bands, while
equation (2) is a measure of normalized surface defor-
mation. When regular arrays of slip bands develop
at the surface both definitions yield similar results.
However, the definition by Harvey et al. cannot be
applied to a case where isolated slip bands form,
because it requires a measure of spacing between sur-
face features, while a measure of surface deformation
is still possible with the definition given by equation
(2). Consequently, the advantage of the latter defi-
nition is its potential to analyze regions with little or
no surface deformation, which permits the analysis of
the distribution of deformation over the entire sample
surface and not only of selected FOVs that contain
surface deformation.
One significant difference between single crystals
and polycrystalline materials is that a slip band does
not cross the full width of a specimen and, therefore,
its contribution to the total surface deformation not
only depends on its height but also on its length,
which must be included in the measure of surface
3762 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
deformation. For example, Fig. 9 shows a FOV of
width W and length L where a single slip band of
height δ developed across the width a of a grain at
an angle α with the loading axis. To account for the
fact that the slip band does not always cover the com-
plete width of the crystal, it is proposed to normalize
the slip band length by the width of the FOV in the
direction parallel to the slip band, or
a The above definition of γirrev is not affected by the
冉 冊
anorm (3)
W L
Min , malized relative to both the width W and the length
sin a cos a
where α is the angle between the slip band and the
loading axis and Min takes the smallest value listed
as arguments. Now, the amount of the normalized
surface upset in one FOV containing n slip bands is
obtained by the summation of the contribution of each
slip band, that is:
冘
n
FOV ⫽
dnorm 2|di|anorm
i (4)
i⫽1
If a constant normalizing factor had been chosen in
equation (3) instead of the width of the FOV, such
as the grain size, all FOVs would have to be the same
size to compare results from equation (4) but, by nor-
malizing relative to the width of the FOV, it is poss-
ible to perform the analysis with different size FOVs.
This is useful if different surface features develop at
various length scale (e.g. [20]) and different magnifi-
cations are required to fully analyze the surface defor-
mation. To convert the surface upset in equation (4)
to a normalized surface deformation (strain), one
needs to divide the amount of normalized surface
upset by the entire gauge length. In other words, when
considering m FOVs, it becomes
Fig. 9. Example of a FOV containing several grains and a sin-
gle slip band of height d and length a. The normalization of
the slip band length is done relative to the width of the FOV
in the direction parallel to the slip band, which can be determ-
ined from the angle a with the loading axis.
冘
m
gnorm
j
girrev ⫽
j⫽1
(5)
冘
m
Lj
j⫽1
where the denominator represents the total length of
the FOVs, which is effectively the gauge length.
size of the FOVs, because the parameter is nor-
L of the FOV. However, an appropriate choice of size
for the FOVs is critical to reach the best combination
of resolution and range necessary for accurate
measurements of the surface features over a surface
area that is as large as possible. Indeed, if a small
size is selected, more FOVs will be necessary to meet
the aforementioned validation criterion that ensures
that the measurements are representative of the entire
surface. Conversely, the resolution is lowered on
large FOVs and small surface features may not be
included in the measurements.
3.7. Distribution of irreversible surface deformation
Due to the high level of heterogeneity of the sur-
face roughening process, average values of the irre-
versible surface deformation are not representative of
the regions with high levels of deformation. There-
fore, it is virtually impossible to predict experimen-
tally the location of these regions and monitor
changes in topography at the precise location where
the fatal crack will nucleate. However, even though
the local maximum of γirrev cannot be directly meas-
ured, the statistical method of describing the hetero-
geneity of surface slip irreversibility described below
is capable of estimating its magnitude and thus has
the potential for detecting the onset of fatigue crack
nucleation. This concept, which is substantiated by
experimental data, assumes that surface damage
resulting from cyclic deformation occurs in a random
fashion, which implies that only a few regions have
extreme amounts of surface upset (high or low) and
the majority of the surface has a local amount of dam-
age that is close to the sample average. As a result, by
statistically characterizing the distribution of surface
deformation in a large number of FOVs, it is possible
to estimate the amount of damage in the region with
maximum local surface damage, even though that
specific region is not directly included in the FOVs.
Figure 10 is an example of the distribution of γirrev
at a quarter of the fatigue life and failure for the speci-
mens tested at 0.255% strain amplitude. The horizon-
tal axis represents ranges of γirrev and the respective
fractions of the surface that have reached these ranges
are indicated on the vertical axis (i.e. the sum of all
the bars for a given condition amounts to 100% of
the surface). The distribution of the surface defor-
mation of all specimens resembles those shown in
Fig. 10, which are analogous to a Gaussian (normal)
 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
Fig. 10. Distribution of the irreversible surface deformation on
the surface of fatigue specimens tested at a strain amplitude
of 0.255%. These plots are based on the irreversible surface
deformation measurements collected from the multiple fields
of view analyzed on each specimen.
distribution about the average value of the irreversible
surface deformation. Consequently, the data can be
equivalently represented with a continuous normal
distribution function, Fig. 11(a), which has the advan-
tage that it can be easily integrated and has an area
Fig. 11. Representation of the distribution of the irreversible
surface deformation at the surface of fatigue specimens using
(a) a normal (Gaussian) distribution function and (b) a normal
cumulative distribution of the irreversible surface deformation.
In (b), the right axis corresponds to one minus the left axis,
and the vertical dotted lines represent the critical values of the
irreversible surface deformation.
3763
under the curve equal to one, corresponding to 100%
of the specimen’s surface. Other statistical functions
may also be used to characterize the distribution of
surface deformation. For example, applying a Weibull
distribution to the current set of data did not notice-
ably affect the results from this analysis. Additional
measurements would be necessary to determine with
certainty the type of distribution that surface strains
assume during uniaxial cyclic loading of a polycrys-
talline material.
From the plots of Fig. 11(a), two main observations
are made on the evolution of the distribution of the
irreversible surface deformation. First, the average
value of the normal distribution curves increases with
the number of cycles, which is consistent with the
results from the previous section on the average
values of irreversible surface deformation and, sec-
ondly, the spread of the curves becomes larger as the
number of cycles increases. The latter is due to the
development of substantial surface upset in some
regions, while others do not experience much pertur-
bation of their surface topography due to unfavorable
local crystallographic orientations of the slip planes
and/or constraint effects between grains. The regions
with significant increase of the surface upset eventu-
ally become zones of instability where crack
nucleation is possible.
Since the normal distribution curves of Fig. 11(a)
reveal the extreme values of irreversible surface
deformation reached in some regions, these plots
directly provide information on the advancement of
surface upset in the highly deformed regions. Thus,
this data can be used to predict when the material
reaches a critical state that will trigger the nucleation
of a fatal crack. This analysis is however better per-
formed on the cumulative version of these plots
shown in Fig. 11(b), which is simply the integral of
the normal distribution curves. The vertical axis on
the left indicates the portion of the surface that con-
tains amounts of irreversible surface deformation
between zero and the amounts indicated on the hori-
zontal axis of the graph. Conversely, the vertical axis
on the right provides the portion of the surface that
has developed amounts of irreversible surface defor-
mation larger than the amount indicated on the hori-
zontal axis. With the information provided in Fig.
11(b), one can assess the evolution of the deformation
distribution over the specimen surface, including in
the regions where extreme values of surface defor-
mation have developed.
3.8. Crack nucleation criterion
The previous AFM and SEM observation showed
that fatigue cracks nucleate in locations where the
surface deformation is high. Since γirrev is capable of
determining the maximum local values of surface
deformation, it is ideally suited as an indicator of the
probability of fatigue crack nucleation. One may
argue that the magnitude of surface upset is not
always the driving force for crack nucleation. For
3764 CRETEGNY and SAXENA: SURFACE DEFORMATION DURING FATIGUE
example, Polák et al. [21] argue that, in copper single
crystals, crack nucleation is driven by the creation of
point defects in the bulk and occurs through the link-
ing of intrusions that are formed at the edges of
extrusions. In this mechanism, γirrev is not a direct
measure of damage that leads to crack nucleation but,
because the forms of damage during fatigue (e.g.
point defect creation and development of surface
upset) occur concurrently, monitoring one provides a
good indicator of the other, and thus, the overall state
of fatigue damage. Therefore, γirrev is a relevant para-
meter for monitoring all types of fatigue damage and
a criterion for crack nucleation may be defined in
terms of a critical local value of γirrev necessary for
crack nucleation. This critical value of γirrev can be
determined from AFM measurements by measuring
the value of γirrev of FOVs that contain a crack
nucleus. Once known, this value can be traced on the
normal distribution curves of the irreversible surface
deformation, as shown by the vertical lines shown on
Fig. 11(b). It was found that the levels of local surface
deformation necessary to trigger the nucleation of a
fatigue crack are different between the high and the
low strain amplitude tests.
The criterion described above does not act like a
“failure or no failure” switch that would imply that a
crack is always nucleated once the critical value of
surface deformation is achieved in a specific location.
On the contrary, Fig. 11(b) clearly shows that a cer-
tain portion of the surface may develop levels of sur-
face deformation well beyond the critical value with-
out nucleating a fatal crack, as observed in all failed
specimens and in some specimens tested to 90% of
the life. The actual fraction of the surfaces that has
reached or exceeded the crack nucleation criterion is
indicated by the ordinate of the intersection of the
distribution curves with the vertical line that specifies
the criterion. Now, if one postulates that the likeli-
hood of nucleating a crack increases proportionally
with the fraction of the surface over which the critical
level of surface deformation is exceeded, the distri-
bution curve of the irreversible surface deformation
provides an estimate of the probability for crack
nucleation. For example, when several identical
fatigue experiments are performed, failure does not
necessarily occur after the same number of cycles
because of the individuality of each specimen and the
ability to predict failure at that point becomes an exer-
cise of probability. According to the criterion defined
here, the probability of failure is null as long as γirrev
has locally not exceeded its critical value at least in
some regions. On the other hand, as regions with fav-
orable lattice orientations for formation of surface
upset develop levels of surface deformation beyond
that critical amount, the nucleation of a fatal crack
becomes possible, and a measure of the probability
that the specimen has nucleated a fatal crack may be
directly read from the plots of Fig. 11(b).
According to the above theory, the probability of
failure at N/Nf values of 1 in this study was approxi-
mately 30%. Ideally, these experiments should be
repeated with in situ AFM measurements where the
progression of surface damage can be followed on the
same specimen at several N/Nf values.
4. CONCLUSIONS
From the SEM and AFM analyses of the surface
deformation and crack nucleation behavior of
polycrystalline copper tested at 0.161% and 0.255%
strain amplitude, the following conclusions were
drawn.
A strong influence of the orientation of the slip
bands was observed at both strain amplitudes, as the
number of slip bands that have an angle with the load
axis between 30° and 80° was much larger than for
other orientations. Both strain amplitudes yield simi-
lar average slip band height at failure of about 250
nm, which indicates that the growth of slip bands
saturates at this height in polycrystalline copper with
a grain size of 40 µm. Protrusions were present at the
surface of copper specimens tested at 0.255% strain
amplitude and developed in grains of various sizes,
from a few to several hundred µm. They develop
throughout the fatigue life, with the fraction of slip
bands that are part of protrusion increasing from 10%
at N/Nf = 0.25–50% at failure. Protrusions appear to
form by multiplication of active slip planes within
existing slip bands.
Intergranular crack nucleation occurs at both strain
amplitudes. Crack nuclei systematically develop at
grain boundaries between a highly deformed grain
and one with little evidence of surface upset. The
strain mismatch between the two grains seems to be
the driving force for intergranular crack nucleation.
The definition of the surface deformation para-
meter, γirrev, was formulated to examine the distri-
bution of surface deformation over the surface of any
material, independently of the type of surface upset.
This approach provides a means to estimate the
maximum levels of surface deformation developed by
critical regions where fatigue crack nucleation is
likely to occur. A criterion for crack nucleation was
defined as follows: fatigue crack nucleation is poss-
ible once the material develops, on a local scale, sur-
face deformation of a magnitude that exceeds a criti-
cal value. This critical value can be determined from
AFM images that contain crack nuclei.
Acknowledgements—The authors are grateful for the financial
support of the Office of Naval Research under the M-URI Pro-
gram “Integrated Diagnostics” (Grant No. N00014-95).
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