Accepted Manuscript

A threshold formula for fatigue crack growth with mean stress

intensity factors

Xiaojing Cai , Ri Xia , Mingchen Huo , Jinquan Xu

PII: S0020-7403(17)32128-8
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2017.12.014
Reference: MS 4078

To appear in: International Journal of Mechanical Sciences

Received date: 5 August 2017

Revised date: 29 November 2017
Accepted date: 7 December 2017

Please cite this article as: Xiaojing Cai , Ri Xia , Mingchen Huo , Jinquan Xu , A threshold formula for
fatigue crack growth with mean stress intensity factors, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences
(2017), doi: 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2017.12.014

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Highlights
 The variation of threshold with mean SIF is similar to that of fatigue limit with mean stress.
 The plastic damage at crack front would affect threshold greatly.
 A threshold formula with respect to mean SIF has been derived.
 A formula to estimate the critical mean stress intensity factor has been derived.

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* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jqxu@sjtu.edu.cn (J.-Q. Xu).
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Graphical Abstract

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* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jqxu@sjtu.edu.cn (J.-Q. Xu).
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A threshold formula for fatigue crack growth with mean stress

intensity factors
*
Xiaojing Cai, Ri Xia, Mingchen Huo, Jinquan Xu
State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

Abstract: From the fatigue limit condition of crack front, a threshold formula has been derived
with respect to mean stress intensity factors. Examinations with experimental results show that

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this formula can express threshold quantitatively and uniformly. It is found that threshold varies
with mean stress intensity factor just as that fatigue limit varies with mean stress if the mean stress

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intensity factor is smaller than a critical value, while if the mean stress intensity factor is larger
than the critical value, plastic deformation at crack front would affect threshold greatly. It has also

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been investigated that why there would be such a critical mean stress intensity factor behavior.
The reason lies on that whether damage induced by plastic deformation at crack front could be
neglected or not. A formula to estimate the critical mean stress intensity factor has also been
derived.
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Keywords: Threshold, Mean stress intensity factor, Fatigue limit, Mean stress, Crack front
1. Introduction
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Fatigue crack growth behavior is a very important material’s property in application, thereby,
the growth rate curve [1-6] of metals has been widely investigated in the last decades. The
threshold is especially of interest in engineering. However, since it is strongly dependent on stress
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ratio or mean stress intensity factor (SIF), determining thresholds systemically by experiments
would take too much time and too many costs. Besides, many other factors, such as environment
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and temperature, local behavior of crack tip, etc., would influence the value of threshold. Even the
measurement method would influence its value too. Of course, micro-mechanisms [7-12] also play
a very important role in detailed threshold behavior. On the other hand, from the view of
application, a simple relationship between thresholds and mean stress ratios or mean stress
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intensity factors (SIFs) is strongly expected. So various empirical relationships [13-19] have been
proposed already in literature. These empirical relationships have indicated that there are various
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patterns of threshold’s variation with stress ratio, and different empirical formulas must be adopted
for different materials. It must be noted that threshold can be regarded as a kind of material
constant (containing the effect of material’s micro-structure) only if the stress field at crack front is
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SIF-dominated, and must be under the plane strain state and the same non-corrosive environment,
moreover, material’s damage should be induced by cyclic loading only. Thereby, any relationship
between threshold and mean stress ratio or SIF should be applied only to cases that these
limitations have been satisfied. Assuming that threshold is a kind of material constant, i.e., for
cases that all mentioned limitations are satisfied, this study tried to derive a unified formula for
threshold with some material constants only.
Considering that fatigue limit of material has been widely applied in engineering application,
correlating the threshold formula with fatigue limit may be a better choice. Focusing on the
threshold of crack propagation only, this study has derived a threshold formula with respect to
mean SIF, from the view of fatigue limit condition at crack front. Examinations with experimental
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jqxu@sjtu.edu.cn (J.-Q. Xu).
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results show that the formula can well express threshold’s variation with mean SIF for various
metals.

Nomenclature

D front 0 Initial damage at crack front

Dac Accumulated fatigue damage at crack front
Dp Damage induced by plastic deformation at crack front
I1 , I 2 The first and second stress invariant
K max The maximum of stress intensity factor

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K Im Mean stress intensity factor

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K Im C Critical mean SIF at which decreasing style of threshold changes
Ka Amplitude of stress intensity factor

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K thR Threshold corresponding to stress ratio R
K thRC Threshold corresponding to critical stress ratio RC
K th ( K Im ) Threshold corresponding to mean SIF K Im
Lf
R
RC
Characteristic length
Stress ratio
Critical stress ratio
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SIF Stress intensity factor
 1 Fatigue limit of smooth material under symmetric fatigue
b Ultimate tensile strength
m
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Mean stress
 eq Equivalent stress of multiaxial fatigue
 f ( m1 ) Fatigue limit of smooth material under mean stress  m
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 a1 Equivalent stress amplitude at crack front

 m1 Equivalent mean stress at crack front
, Material constants appearing in fatigue limit formula
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 Poisson’s ratio
 Ratio of plastic region size to characteristic length
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2. Classification of empirical formulas

Threshold usually is expressed by the critical nominal SIF range, i.e., by K  K max  K min ,
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where K max and K min are nominal maximum and minimum SIFs, respectively. If K  K th
(threshold, a kind of material constant if necessary limitations are satisfied), no crack propagation
would occur, while if K  K th , fatigue crack growth is unavoidable. Early crack growth laws
[1, 20] were usually just described by the nominal SIF range K . But lately, taking the effect of
crack tip closure into account [21-24], the effective SIF range which is defined by

K ef  K max  K op , where K op is the nominal SIF at which crack tip closure appears, has become

the most widely used parameter to describe the growth law. Obviously, there would also be crack
tip closure phenomenon at threshold condition. So it may be more reasonable to define threshold

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jqxu@sjtu.edu.cn (J.-Q. Xu).
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by the effective SIF range. It is true that K op varies with nominal K , so growth laws

described by nominal and effective SIF ranges may be quite different, and usually those described

by K ef can fit experimental results well indeed. However, focusing on the threshold condition

only, K is a specified critical SIF range only, so K op , and thereby K ef , should also be

specified values too. That is, limited to, and only to the threshold’s expression, it is equivalent to

adopt either K or K ef , though their critical values are of course different. For this reason,

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taking the convenience of application into account, we use the critical nominal SIF range to

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express threshold in this study. However, it does not mean that K and K ef are equivalent

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in describing crack growth law, in which the latter is generally more effective.
Empirical formulas of threshold existing in literature are different according to testers and
materials. They can be classified into 6 types as shown in Fig. 1.

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Kth
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I

II IV
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VI V
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III
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 R 0.5 1.0

Fig. 1. Schematics of existing relationships between threshold and stress ratio

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Type I: The threshold decreases linearly with stress ratio at first, and then keeps constant [13-15]
hereafter if the stress ratio reaches a critical value RC . Denoting the threshold as K thR (where
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suffix R denotes the corresponding stress ratio), the relationship of this type can be expressed
mathematically as:
K thR  (1  R)K th0 for R  R C
(1a)
K thR  C  (1  RC )K th0 for R  R C
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or
K thR  K th0  BR for R  R C
(1b)
K thR  C  K th0  BRC for R  R C
where B is the slope of threshold’s decrease with stress ratio, and K th0 is the threshold at
R  0 . Obviously, Eq. (1a) in fact is only a special case of Eq. (1b) with B  K th0 . In this
empirical formula, a linear decreasing style is assumed, which can fit experimental results for
some materials. Though there is no theoretical evidence that threshold would decrease linearly
with slope of B  K th0 , Eq. (1) is a frequently used formula to estimate threshold. The
well-known physical explanation [17] to Eq. (1a) is that the threshold is dominated by K max

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when stress ratio is smaller than RC , and is dominated by K when stress ratio is larger than
RC . The advantage of Eq. (1) is that no additional fitting parameter is necessary, but at the same
time, it is also the shortage of Eq. (1), since the variation of threshold is basically
material-dependent and material constants should be involved logically. On the other hand, an
obvious difference between experimental thresholds and estimated results would appear when
R  1 . Moreover, K th1  2K th0 can be estimated from Eq. (1a), but it is also not true for
many materials.
Type II: The threshold decreases non-linearly with R ratio at first, and then keeps constant [16,17]
hereafter if the stress ratio reaches a critical value RC . The non-linear decreasing style can be
expressed by various functions of R , so many function forms are possible to be used to express

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the empirical relationship. The simplest expression (thereby, the most popular but quite rough

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expression) is

K thR  (1  R)  K th0 for R  R C

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
(2)
K thR  C  (1  RC ) K th0 for R  R C

where  is a fitting parameter to express decreasing style. Obviously, Eq. (1a) is in fact involved
in Eq. (2) if one takes   1 . However, Eq. (1b) cannot be involved in Eq. (2). This fact would

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mean that Eq. (2) might not always be the proper fitting function, even though a fitting parameter
has been introduced. Especially, the first formula in Eq. (2) is commonly known as Walker’s
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approach [16,17].
Type III: For R  RC , this type is the same as Type II. The difference is that this type [15]
considered threshold’s non-linear decreasing for R  RC too. Such a consideration is logically
more reasonable since that K th1 at R  1 must be zero. There were indeed experimental results
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[13,18] which do not keep constant after RC . The simplest expression of this type is
KthR  (1  R) Kth 0 for R  R C
 (3)
(1  RC )
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KthR  c(1  R)  KthRc c for R  R C

(1  RC )

where  is also a fitting parameter, and K thRC denotes the threshold corresponding to the
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critical stress ratio RC .

Above three types had been proposed for any stress ratio originally. Considering the opening
condition of crack tip, there are also a lot of empirical formulas for R  0 only, as it will be
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summarized below.
Type IV: The threshold decreases with stress ratio non-linearly but smoothly [13,18]. The
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simplest expression is

K thR  (1  R) K th0 for R  0 (4)

In this type, there is no critical stress ratio RC . It should be noted that this empirical formula
usually cannot be extended to R  0 , since the fitting parameter  is obtained by experimental
results for R  0 only.
Type V: This type is similar to Type III, but it is limited only to R  0 [19].
Type VI: This type is similar to Type I, but it is limited only to R  0 [25-28].
From above reviews, it can be concluded that threshold decreases with stress ratio or mean SIF
generally. There would be a critical stress ratio RC or mean SIF K Im C at which the decreasing

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style changes. Almost all empirical formulas on threshold were concluded with respect to stress
ratios. It is not difficult to transform them into the form with respect to mean SIFs by using
1 R
K Im  K thR (5)
2(1  R)
In this study, we will develop a unified formula of threshold with respect to mean SIF theoretically.
To distinguish them clearly, we denote the threshold corresponding to mean SIF as K th ( K Im ) ,
while those corresponding to stress ratios as K thR .

3. Threshold condition in terms of stresses at crack front

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Threshold behavior of crack growth can be well explained by dislocations’ pile-up ahead of
crack tip [7-10]. It is true that the threshold formula may be better to be derived from its

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micro-mechanisms. However, threshold itself is basically a macroscopic property, so correlating it
with macro fatigue properties such as fatigue limit may be a more applicable method. For the

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purpose of correlating, we consider a certain length L f at crack front (noting that it is introduced

only for correlating threshold condition to fatigue limit condition, it will vanish finally in the

x y 
K Im  K a sin t
0

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threshold formula), as shown in Fig. 2. Stress distribution near the crack tip can be expressed as:

,  z   2 ( K Im  K a sin t )
Plane stress
at   0 (6)
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2r  P l a ns et r a i n
 2r

where  is the Poisson’s ratio, K Im is the mean SIF induced by remote mean stress, K a is the
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amplitude of SIF corresponding to remote stress amplitude, and r is the distance from crack tip
at crack front, as shown in Fig. 2. So a crack front is always under multiaxial stress state. To
correlate the threshold behavior with fatigue limit, introducing an equivalent fatigue stress to
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multiaxial stresses may be the simplest method. Various definitions [29-32] of equivalent fatigue
stress can be considered. However, whatever an equivalent stress definition is used, since the
stress field is determined by the SIF only, the equivalent fatigue stress at crack front can be always
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expressed as:
y
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Average stress within Lf

Singular stress

r
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 x
Lf

Fig. 2. Stresses at crack front

F ( K Im  K a sin t )
 eq    meq   aeq sin t (7a)
2r
FK a FK Im
 aeq  ,  meq  (7b)
2r 2r
where F is a constant depended on the definition of equivalent fatigue stress. Here we remain it

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undetermined for the generality.

To express the threshold condition by stress at crack front, the average of equivalent fatigue

stress amplitude  a1 and mean stress  m1 within the length L f are considered.

FK

Lf
1 FK a 2
 a1  dr  FK a  (8a)
Lf 0 2r L f 2L f


Lf
1 FK Im 2
 m1  dr  FK Im (8b)
Lf 0 2r L f

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Focusing on the damage within length L f , it surely should be different from that in a smooth

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specimen due to the effect of crack. Denoting the initial damage within length L f as D front 0 , it

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can be considered to be composed by two parts, i.e., 1) the damage induced by plastic deformation
at crack front due to the mean SIF, 2) the fatigue damage induced by cyclic deformation due to
cyclic SIF. So the initial damage at crack front can be expressed as:

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D front 0  Dac (K )  D p ( K Im ) (9)
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where Dac (K ) denotes the fatigue damage and D p ( K Im ) denotes the plastic damage. Focusing

on the threshold condition, Dac  0 (otherwise, threshold condition cannot be reached due to the
damage accumulation. It should be noted that Dac  0 at a propagating crack front), but plastic
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deformation will always exist at crack front, so that D p  0 generally if there is mean SIF.

According to the concept of effective stress in continuum damage mechanics, the fatigue limit
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condition of materials can be expressed as:

 a1
  f ( m1 ) (10)
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1  D front 0

where  f ( m1 ) is the fatigue limit corresponding to mean stress  m1 . This fatigue limit
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condition means that if the effective amplitude is lower than the fatigue limit, damage
accumulation would not happen, so the crack would not grow. That is, Eq. (10) is an alternative
expression for threshold condition of K  K th ( K Im ) . From this threshold condition, deriving
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the formula of threshold with respect to mean SIF becomes possible.

4. The formula of threshold

Substituting Eq. (8) into (10) yields
1  D front 0
K th ( K Im )   f ( m1 ) 2L f (11)
F

To determine the length L f which is considered as a material constant at crack front, we

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consider the symmetrical fatigue at first, i.e., consider the case with K Im  0,  m1  0 . Limited to

this case and its threshold condition, one has D front 0  0 , so one gets

 1
K th (0)  K th1  2L f (12)
F

Regarding K th1 ,  1 as material constants, the length L f can be determined from Eq. (12) as:

2
1  FK th (0) 
Lf    (13)
2   1 

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Obviously L f is a material constant too, so we call it fatigue characteristic length below, and can

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also be applied to non-symmetrical fatigue cases. From the fatigue limit condition at crack front
within this length, i.e., substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (11), one gets the theoretical threshold
formula as:

K th ( K Im ) 
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(1  D front 0 ) f ( m1 )
 1
K th (0) (14)
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The parameter F disappears in form. This fact means that whatever a definition of equivalent
stress is used, the variation of threshold with mean SIF is just similar to that of fatigue limit with
mean stress. However, it should be noted that the mean stress here corresponds to the equivalent

mean stress at crack front, not to the remote mean stress. Since  m1 is much larger than the
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remote mean stress due to the singular behavior at crack front, thresholds would decrease more
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rapidly with K Im in form.

However, to apply the formula Eq. (14), following two difficulties have to be cleared yet.
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Effect of initial damage

One difficulty is how to determine the initial damage at crack front. For cases with small
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mean SIF, it is reasonable to assume that the damage induced by plastic deformation at crack front

can be neglected if the mean SIF is small enough (i.e., D front 0  D p ( K Im )  0 ). But for cases with
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large mean SIF, obviously D front 0  D p ( K Im )  0 . Introducing a critical mean SIF K Im C to

distinguish whether the plastic damage can be neglected or not, Eq. (14) can be rewritten as:
 f ( m1 )
 K th (0) for K Im  K Im C
  1
K th ( K Im )   (15)
  f ( m1 p )
 
 1  D p ( K Im )  1
K th (0) for K Im  K Im C


Although  m1 can be calculated by Eq. (8b) for K Im  K Im C , the mean stress  m1 p at crack

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front for K Im  K Im C cannot be calculated by singular elastic field since the stress distribution

within L f may be dominated by HRR field rather than the K-field if the mean SIF is large. It is

very difficult to give a mathematical expression of  m1 p . Moreover, the initial damage D p ( K Im )

is also very difficult to be determined. These facts mean that the second equation in Eq. (15) could
only be an empirical one, but it can help us to give the function form of empirical formula by such
a consideration. That is, representing

1  D p ( K Im )  1  cK Im  K Im C 


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f o r KI m  K I Cm
(16)
 m1 p  bK Im
d

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where a modifying factor 1  cK Im  K Im C  has been introduced to replace 1  D front 0 , for the


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convenience of expressing threshold formula by macro parameters only. But parameters c, 

have to be determined by tests with K Im  K Im C . Noting that  m1 p here is not an exact

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expression, but the function form has taken HRR distribution into account. Since c,  are fitting

parameters, the plastic damage Dp ( KIm ) is not an exact expression either. Eq. (16) has introduced
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an assumption that initial plastic damage varies with K Im  K Im C in a power law function style.

Whether this assumption is reasonable or not, it should be examined by experimental thresholds.

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Fortunately, as it will be examined later, such a variation function form can describe threshold’s
variation for many materials well. However, exceptions cannot be excluded since it is only an
assumption, though exceptions have not been found within the range of examined examples.
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Considering that the mean stress at the critical mean SIF must be continuous with Eq. (8b),

and when the mean SIF reaches K IC (fracture toughness), the mean stress must reach  b
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(ultimate tensile strength) simultaneously, from the second equation of Eq. (16), one has:

2 1 K Im C
 m1 p ( K Im C )  bK Im
d
C  at K Im  K Im C
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Kth (0) (17)

 m1 p ( K IC )  bK  σb
d
IC at K Im  K IC
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Parameters b, d can then be solved from Eq. (17) as:

 2 K Im C 1 
log 
  b K th (0)  
d , b  db (18)
log(K Im C / K IC ) K IC

It can be seen that b, d are constants if K Im C has been estimated and can be calculated if

material constants are known. Anyway, b, d are not independent parameters, they are notations
introduced just for the convenience of expression.

Quantitative relationship of  f ( m )

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To obtain quantitative estimation of threshold from Eq. (14) or (15), quantitative relationship
between fatigue limit and mean stress is necessary. There are several well-known empirical
relationships such as Goodman’s and Gerber’s formulas. However, somewhat surprisingly, they
can provide only very rough estimation of fatigue limit, and may be quite different from
experimental results [33] as shown in Fig. 3. Actually, any quantitative relationship of fatigue limit
can be used to estimate the threshold from Eq. (15). As an example, we use the relationship [34,35]
shown below for following examinations.

Sm 1   m  Sm 1   m   4 Sm 1 m

2

f  ， S m  1    m  (19)
2  b 

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where  ,  are material constants,  b is the ultimate tensile strength. This formula is in fact a

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generalized relationship. Taking   1,  1 , it becomes the well-known Goodman’s relationship.
In other words, Goodman’s relationship is accurate only for materials with constants   1,  1 .

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While for materials with   1,  1 , Goodman’s relationship cannot give accurate enough
estimations. Fig. 3 shows the comparison with Gao’s experimental results [33] for Aluminum
alloy LY12CZ. It can be seen that Eq. (19) can estimate fatigue limit exactly. It is noted that  , 

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are material’s fatigue properties, they would have different values for different materials, therefore
fatigue limit would have different decreasing styles with mean stress. Considering that the
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variation of fatigue limit is also a kind of material property, introducing two constants to represent
the effect of material is reasonable and thereby can give quantitative estimation for any material.
From Eq. (19), it can be seen that constant  dominates the decrease of fatigue limit for small

mean stress since S m  1 , so one or two fatigue limits for small mean stresses is enough to
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determine constant  by Eq. (19). While constant  dominates the decrease of fatigue limit
for large mean stress, so it can be determined by one or two fatigue tests with large mean stresses,
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after constant  having been determined.

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100
LY12CZ
80 6E6 cycles
Fatigue Limit /MPa

Fatigue Limit
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60 Eq.(19) =7.5
=0.527
40
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Goodman
20

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Mean stress /MPa

Fig. 3. Dependence of fatigue limit on mean stress

With above preparation, substituting Eqs. (8b) (12) and (16) (19) into (15), one gets the unified
formula of threshold as:

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
 for K Im  K Im C
Kth ( K Im )   
(20a)
(1  c( K Im  K Im C ) ) p
 for K Im  K Im C

where

S m K th (0)  2 K Im  S m K th (0)  2K Im 2  8S m K th (0) K Im  2 1 K Im 



 , S m  1   
 (20b)
2   b K th (0) 

S mp K th (0)  gK Im
d
 S mp 
K th (0)  gK Im
d 2
 4gS mp K th (0) K Im
d

p 
2

(20c)

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 bK d  bK th (0)
S mp  1   Im  , g 

 b   1

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Since b is a constant connected with material’s properties as shown in Eq. (18), g can also be
determined according to material constants. Noting that  ,  are the same material constants

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defined by Eq. (19) for fatigue limit. Only for the case that   1,  1 , the decreasing style of

threshold is a line for K Im  K Im C . Various curved decreasing styles of threshold can be expressed

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by Eq. (20) with taking different constants  , , so it is a generalized form of threshold with
mean SIF. All types reviewed in Section 2 can be involved in Eq. (20). It should be noted that if
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the relationships between fatigue limit and mean stress are given in other forms (but should be a
quantitative one), thresholds can also be estimated by Eq. (15) directly. Formula Eq. (20) is
developed from Eq. (19) for the convenience of following examinations. If material constants 
and  have not been determined by fatigue limits already, they can also be determined directly
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by fitting Eq. (20b) with experimental thresholds.

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5. Examinations
Kloster [15] has reported experimental thresholds under various stress ratios for 34CrNiMo6.

Material’s yield and ultimate strength are  Y  626MPa, b  819MPa , respectively, Poisson’s
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ratio is 0.3. From very few fatigue limit data [31,32] as shown in Fig. 4, material constants

contained in Eq. (19) can be determined as   0.05,   1.5 and  1  235MPa . The
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comparison of Eq. (20) with Kloster’s results is shown in Fig. 5. The critical value

K Im C  7.5MPa m is estimated from experimental data here. It must be noted that the curve for
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K Im  K Im C shown in the figure is calculated by Eq. (20a) theoretically (noting that plane strain

condition is assumed) with the use of  , determined in Fig. 4. Experimental results coincided

with theoretical curve well. While the curve for K Im  K Im C is a fitted one by taking

c  0.095,   1.1 in the second equation of Eq. (20a). In other words, parameters c,  can be
determined by fitting technology. On the other hand, since only two parameters are needed to be
determined, two or three experimental thresholds for large mean SIFs are enough to determine

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c,  . Noting that K IC  80MPa m is assumed in fitting due to lack of data. Since the second

equation is intrinsically an empirical one which has to be fitted by experiments, here K IC can

also be explained as a pre-assumed parameter for the fitted region. However, if thresholds

corresponding to mean SIF near fracture toughness K IC are concerned, exact value of K IC

must be used.  p has also been shown in Fig. 5, which corresponds to the threshold without the

effect of plastic damage, but with the effect of mean stress’s reduction due to the yielding. It can

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be seen that the damage induced by plastic deformation at crack front plays a role of strengthening

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rather than weakening in this material. In other words, plastic deformation leads to a minus

damage in this case, as it is fitted as D p ( K Im )  0.095( K Im  K Im C )1.1 . This is really very

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interesting and important on considering plastic damage.
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34CrNiMo6 Y=626MPa,b=819MPa
300
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1/2

1/2
Kth(0)=19MPa m Fixed R tests
Kth(KIm) /MPa m

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=0.05
Stress amplitude /MPa

Fixed Kmax tests

-1=235MPa, b=819MPa =1.5
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200
=0.05,=1.5 10
KImC=7.5MPa m
1/2

1/2
c=0.095, =1.1 KIC=80MPa m
100 5
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p

0
0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
0 200 400 600 800 1/2
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KIm /MPa m
Mean stress /MPa

Fig. 4. Fatigue limit for various mean stresses Fig. 5. Thresholds of 34CrNiMo6
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Fig. 6 compared Eq. (20) with Couper’s experimental thresholds [25] under various stress
ratios for Aluminum casting alloy Al-7Si-0.4Mg. The Poisson’s ratio is   0.28 , yield strength is
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 Y  220MPa and ultimate strength is  b  310MPa .  1  70MPa . The fracture toughness is

K IC  18.5MPa m .  ,  are fitted from experimental threshold results directly in this example.
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K Im C  5.0MPa m is estimated from experimental data here. Damage induced by plastic

deformation is fitted as D p ( K Im )  0.01( K Im  K Im C ) 2.5 , so it is also a minus damage and would

strengthen the material. It can be seen that threshold behavior for the mean SIF near to K IC can

also be well expressed by Eq. (20) if exact K IC has been used. This examination shows that Eq.

(20) can express experimental thresholds very well, even if the relationship between fatigue limit

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and mean stress is unknown. That is, at least, Eq. (20) can be used to express threshold curve in a
unified way for any material.
Fig. 7 compared Eq. (20) with Ohta’s results [38] for HT-80 steel. The material’s properties are:

 Y  794MPa, b  823MPa ,   0.3 .  1  290MPa .  ,  are also fitted by threshold results

due to lack of fatigue limit data. K Im C  6.0MPa m is estimated from experimental threshold’s

data. Noting that K IC  85MPa m is assumed in fitting for K Im  K Im C due to lack of data. It

can be seen that  p is larger than experimental results, so plastic deformation damage weakens

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the fatigue limit. That is, damage induced by plastic deformation does play the role of damage in

this material, as it is fitted as D p ( K Im )  0.03( K Im  K Im C )1.1 . It may be somewhat confusable

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whether strengthening or weakening effects of plastic deformation would appear. Here we try to
give an explanation. This material has a very large ratio of yield and ultimate tensile strength, i.e.,

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 Y /  b  0.965 . This fact means that micro-cracking would accompany with plastic deformation

greatly. While if  Y /  b is small, micro-cracking would not happen or at least very few when the
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plastic strain is not very large. So focusing on damage, there are always two effects of plastic
deformation, i.e., hardening and micro defect effects. Representing them by damage conceptually,
it can be expressed as:
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D p  Dmicro defect  Dhardening (21)

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So minus damage would appear in total if Dmicrodefect  Dhardening , while weakening effect would

appear if Dmicrodefect  Dhardening . In above three examples, 34CrNiMo6 (  Y /  b  0.76 ) and

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Al-7Si-0.4Mg (  Y /  b  0.7 ) belong to the former, while HT80 belongs to the latter. Due to these
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two effects of plastic deformation on damage, deriving threshold variation with mean SIF from
plastic strain only becomes nearly impossible, though many tries can be found in literature.

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20
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Al-7Si-0.4 Mg Y=220MPa, b=310MPa

Y=794MPa,b=823MPa
8 -1=290MPa
1/2

1/2
Kth(0)=14.3MPa m
Kth(0)=8.4 MPa m
1/2
Kth(KIm) /MPa m

Fixed R tests 15
1/2

=0.16,=1.5 =0.12,=2.4
/MPa m

Fixed Kmax tests Fixed R tests

6
1/2 10
KImC=5.0MPa m 1/2
4 KImC=6.0 MPa m
Kth(KIm)

c=0.011,=2.5 c=-0.03,=1.1
1/2
KIC=18.5MPa m 1/2
2 5 KIC=85 MPa m
p
p

0
0 
0 5 10 15 KIC 20
1/2 0 5 10 15 20
KIm /MPa m KIm /MPa m
1/2

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Fig. 6. Thresholds for Al-7Si-0.4Mg Fig. 7. Thresholds for HT80

From above examinations, it can be seen that thresholds for K Im  K Im C can be estimated

theoretically, while thresholds for K Im  K Im C can be well characterized by the modifying factor

1  cK Im  K Im C  , no matter what a variation style after K Im C it is.



6. Discussions

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It can be seen from Figs. 5-7 that determining the critical mean SIF from experiments would

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surely have some arbitrariness. The reason is simple, because it is basically a problem with
arbitrariness that how large yield region can be neglected. However, it may be very useful if a

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rough estimation formula of K Im C can be developed. Considering that the critical mean SIF

K Im C is related to the condition whether the effect of plastic damage can be neglected or not, it is

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possible to derive it from the view of plastic deformation at crack front. The plastic deformation
can be described by von-Mises stress. According to the knowledge of fracture mechanics [39],
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stresses at a mode I crack front can be expressed as:
  3 
1  sin 2 sin 2 
 x   
    3 
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KI

 y  cos 1  sin sin  (22)
  2r 2 2 2

 xy    3 
 sin 2 cos 2 
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 
So von-Mises stress can be expressed as:

 K Im  K th ( K Im ) sin t / 2  
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 cos (1  2 ) 2  3 sin 2 plane strain

 2r 2 2
e   (23)
 K Im  K th ( K Im ) sin t / 2  
 cos 1  3 sin 2 plane stress
2r
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 2 2

Its maximum can be expressed as:

1.1547 plane stress
f ( K Im  Kth ( K Im ) / 2)  2
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 e max  , f   2  2  2 (24)
2 r  plane strain
 3
So there would always be plastic deformation at the crack tip. However, if the yield region is very

small compared with the length L f as it has been considered for fatigue fracture of crack front,

the damage induced by such a very small yield region might be neglected.

The yielding region length LY under critical mean SIF can be determined by equivalent

maximum von-Mises stress reaches the yield strength within LY as:

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
LY
dr  f K Im C  K th ( K Im C ) / 2
1 2
 e max   Y (25a)
LY
e max
LY 0

It can be solved as:

2
2  f ( K Im C  K th ( K Im C ) / 2) 
LY    (25b)
  Y 

where  e max is the maximum von-Mises stress at crack front that determined by Eq. (24), and

 e max is the maximum equivalent von-Mises stress in one cycle. Using Eq. (13), denoting the

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ratio of yielding region size to characteristic length as  , one gets:

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2
L  f ( K  K th ( K Im C ) / 2) 
  Y  4 1 Im C 

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 (26)
Lf  F Y K th (0) 

To determine F , which is a constant related to the definition of equivalent stress for multiaxial

 eq  I12 
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stress state, following definition is adopted here to calculate LY / L f .

2(1  ) 2
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I2 (27)
1  2 2

where I1 , I 2 are the first and second stress invariant, respectively, and  is the Poisson’s ratio.
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Under this definition, F can be derived from Eq. (7) by substituting Eq. (6) into (27) as:
 2(1  2  3 2 ) / (1  2 2 )
 plane stress (28)
F 
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1   (1  2 ) 2 / (1  2 2 ) plane strain

Using K Im C , K th ( K imC ) estimated in Figs. 5-7, Fig. 8 shows LY / L f for above examined
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materials based on Eq. (24) (26).

1.0
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0.8
=Ly/Lf

0.6
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0.4 Al-7Si-0.4Mg HT-80

0.32

0.2 34CrNiMo6

0.0
Materials

Fig. 8. Yielding region under critical mean SIF

It can be seen that  locates within a very narrow range (0.29-0.34) for all examined materials.
That is, the critical mean SIF corresponds to the condition that the yielding region length reaches

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about 0.32 L f . From this assumption, the estimation formula of K Im C can be derived.

The yield condition of region L f can be expressed as:

L f

  e maxdr  f K Im C  K th ( K Im C ) / 2
1 2
 e max   Y (29)
L f 0 L f

where  Y is the yield strength. Substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (29), one gets

1   F Y 

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K Im C   K th (0)  K th ( K Im C ) (30)
2  f 1 

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Substituting Eq. (20a) into (30) yields

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 FK th (0) Y S m K th (0)  2 K Im C  S m K th (0)  2K Im C 2  8S m K th (0) K Im C
K Im C  
2 1 f 4

(31)

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Eq. (31) could be solved for K Im C numerically. Taking   0.32 , it can be calculated that
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K Im C  9.1MPa m for 34CrNiMo6, K Im C  4.8MPa m for Al-7Si-0.4Mg, and

K Im C  5.0MPa m for HT80. It can be easily seen from Figs. 5-7 that these values are within the
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arbitrariness on determining K Im C . So setting   0.32 in Eq. (31) can give the estimation of

critical mean SIF.

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The critical stress ratio RC can then also be estimated by

2(1  RC )
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K th ( K Im C )  K Im C (32)
1  RC

Such an estimation method to determine critical value K Im C is related to material constants

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 1 , ,  and K th (0) only.

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7. Conclusions
A unified formula to estimate threshold of crack growth with respect to mean SIF has been
developed. Main results can be concluded as:
1) Below the critical mean SIF, the dependence of threshold on mean SIF is just similar to that of
fatigue limit on mean stress.
2) Beyond the critical mean SIF, plastic deformation would affect threshold. An empirical factor to
express the contribution of plastic deformation has been proposed.
3) Mean stress at crack front is different from that of remote applied loading, due to the multiaxial
effects.

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4) A formula to estimate critical mean SIF has been developed.

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under
grant No.10772116.

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