ISSN 1068-798X, Russian Engineering Research, 2007, Vol. 27, No. 8, pp. 513–518. © Allerton Press, Inc., 2007.
Original Russian Text © Yu.G. Kabaldin, S.N. Murav’yev, 2007, published in Vestnik Mashinostroeniya, 2007, No. 8, pp. 46–50.
Information Models of Self-Organization and Fatigue Damage
of Metallic Materials
Yu. G. Kabaldin and S. N. Murav’yev
Komsomol’sk-on-Amur State Technical University
DOI: 10.3103/S1068798X07080072
There are various views at the present time on the
mechanisms of the structural transformations in the
metallic materials. In several works, the structural
transformations are examined from the viewpoint of
synergetics theory as a nonequilibrium phase change
with the forming of dissipative structures as a conse-
quence of self-organization [1–10]. Thus, in [11] the
structural transformations are examined from the view-
point of the forming and movement of the partial discli-
nations. In [12] the forming of the substructure is asso-
ciated with the polygonization processes. According to
the studies [9, 10], the structural transformations in the
defect subsystem are controlled by the scalar density of
the partial dislocations and the accumulated strain
energy. It is noted in [3] that the structural changes in
the defect subsystem may be determined by the form-
ing of the collective mode carriers (structons), which
causes the “crystallization” of the material of the sub-
boundaries upon reaching the critical density of the
chaotic dislocations.
In accordance with the principles of synergetics the-
ory, self-organization, i.e., the transition from the
unstable state to the stable state, is accompanied by
decrease of the entropy production [2]. In this case the
open system exchanges both energy and information
with the external medium. The founder of synergetics
theory, H. Haken [13], analyzed the changes of the
information (the Shannon information entropy Su) in
the nonuniform phase transition. It was shown that in
this case the system acquires the ability to store infor-
mation. Therefore Su can characterize the orderliness
(stability) of the system upon disruption of its symme-
try. However, the role of the information has not been
studied in the literature on the basis of the principles of
synergetics theory in the case of the structural transfor-
mations in the defect subsystem of the materials. From
the viewpoint of synergetics theory, it is important to
determine which parameter in the system is the order
parameter that gives rise to the collective behavior of
the dislocations. Several other questions arise when
examining the role of the information in the structural
transformations, specifically: how do the individual
dislocations transfer the information (signal); what is
the mechanism of their coordinated (cooperative) inter-
action; how is the information stored in the course of
513
the structural transitions and what controls the struc-
tural changes; is the order parameter the information
carrier?
In this connection, it is necessary to note the impor-
tance of the studies that have been performed at the
Institute of Metallurgy and Machine Science of the
Russian Academy of Sciences under the guidance of
V.S. Ivanova [1, 4–6], in which the structural informa-
tion is proposed as the measure of the orderliness of the
system upon disruption of its symmetry. The technique
of multifractal parametrization of the materials has
been created on the basis of this approach. It is well
known that the fractals also have informational proper-
ties. The connection of the fractal dimension with the
mechanical properties of the materials was shown in [1,
7, and others], and a new interdisciplinary scientific
direction was created (fractal materials science).
We should also note the extremely fruitful idea of
V.E. Panin [8] on the role of information in the struc-
tural transformations in the highly excited state of the
crystals, in accordance with which there is embedded in
the electron structure of the metals and alloys a genetic
code. This code determines the structural transforma-
tions in the highly excited state of the crystals and the
appearance of the new permitted states and degrees of
freedom. In accordance with Haken’s classification
[13], this form of information should be termed genetic.
However the open systems interchange information
with the environment, and the exchange of the genetic
information that is embedded in the system with the
information of the environment leads to the creation of
new information.
The prediction of the failure of materials and of their
remaining service life is possible only on the basis of
the development of the promising new techniques for
evaluating in real time the structural changes in the
materials that precede their failure. One such method is
acoustic emission (AE). It is well known that the AE
signals carry information on the forming and the move-
ment of the dislocations, on the correlated collective
effects, and so on [14]. Thanks to the rapid develop-
ment of computer technology and the new methods for
analyzing the nonstationary signals (wavelet analysis
[15–17] and the neural networks), it is possible not only
to analyze the AE signals in real time but also to model
514 KABALDIN, MURAV’YEV
(‡)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 1. Electron photomicrographs illustrating the deforma-
tions with cyclic loading of steel 20 specimens: (a) domi-
nant deformation in the near-boundary volumes (×450);
(b) stable slip bands (×450); (c) microcracks (×800).
them, examining them as time series, and also to
develop the new structural and informational criteria
that are adequately associated with the processes of the
structural transformations and the failure of the materi-
als. The present article is devoted to the resolution of
these important problems.
For the study of the fatigue damage of the materials
with the application of the AE method, we have used a
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special setup that makes it possible to conduct bending
tests of the flat specimens with a clamped end. The free
end of the specimen is subjected to loading in alternate
bending. The loading of the specimen is accomplished
with the aid of a crank–rod mechanism that is driven by
a dc motor. The system for creating the bending oscil-
lations by the crank-rod mechanism is located directly
on the motor shaft. It is possible to regulate the ampli-
tude of the oscillations by varying the position of the
crank roller. The maximal amplitude of the oscillations
is 20 mm. The use of the dc motor makes it possible to
vary the oscillation frequency up to 30 Hz.
To eliminate the influence of mechanical noise on
the acoustic recording system, a portion of the setup is
isolated by rubber damping pads. The specimen is also
attached to the setup through an isolating pad, which
prevents transmission of the high-frequency noise that
arises as a consequence of the friction of the specimen
with the mobile clamp. The test specimens are plates of
thickness 2 mm, with the working section length
70 mm. The specimens were fabricated by contour
milling. The width of the widest part of the specimens
is 8 mm. Specimens of steel 20 and the OT-4 titanium
alloy were used in the studies.
The experimental technique was as follows. The
desired amplitude of the oscillations was established on
the basis of the maximal design stress in the specimen.
The selected oscillation frequency was constant for
each series of experiments. A piezoelectric transducer
was installed on the specimen in order to record the
acoustic signals in the course of the fatigue tests of the
materials. The pickup was mounted directly on the
specimen. The signal from the pickup was fed to a
preamplifier and then to the analog-digital converter of
the computer. The acoustic signals arising in the course
of the fatigue damage of the material of the specimens
were also recorded on the computer. Then the AE sig-
nals were processed with the aid of specially developed
software that made it possible to analyze the fatigue
damage of the materials on the basis of fractal analysis
and wavelet analysis, and also made it possible to cal-
culate the Shannon information entropy Su. In the frac-
tal analysis of the AE signals, we used as the criterion
of the stability of the structural state of the material the
fractal dimension DF. Wavelet analysis made it possible
to evaluate this criterion in real time.
A model JEM-7A electron microscope was used for
the electron-microscope studies of the thin foils. We
studied the steel 20 specimens after their fatigue load-
ing. The damages of the surface layers in the form of
slip bands and microcracks were studied on a model
JSM-3U scanning electron microscope with the various
loading cycles.
Figure 1 presents the photomicrographs of the struc-
tural changes in the steel 20 specimen on the macro-
and microlevels. We see in Fig. 1a that in the initial
stages of the cyclic hardening of the materials there
forms a specific relief in the form of depressions and
Vol. 27 No. 8 2007
 INFORMATION MODELS OF SELF-ORGANIZATION 515

(‡) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 2. Electron photomicrographs illustrating the changes in the deformed volumes of steel 20 specimens: (a) dislocation structure
at the ferrite grain boundary in the microyielding stage (×14000); (b) chaotic dislocation structure in the ferrite grains (×14000);
(c) cellular dislocation structure in the strain hardening stage (×14000); (d) fragmented dislocation structure (×14000).

protrusions, indicating predominant deformation in the
near-surface volume of the material. In the course of
increase of the number of loading cycles, there form in
the favorably oriented ferrite grains slip lines, and then
stable slip bands (Fig. 1b) and microcracks (Fig. 1c). It
was established by the electron-microscope study that
in the course of the cyclic loading process the forming
of the dislocations is concentrated near the boundaries
of the ferrite grains (Fig. 2a). Their formation takes
place in the microyielding stage. With increase of the
number of the loading cycles, there forms in the ferrite
grains in the strain hardening stage a chaotic (Fig. 2b)
and then cellular dislocation structure (Fig. 2c), which
with increase of the number of the loading cycles tran-
sitions to the fragmented (Fig. 2d) and then banded
structure.
Figure 3 presents the photomicrographs of the struc-
tural changes in the grains of the OT-4 titanium alloy.
Here there also form the slip lines (Fig. 3a), transitioning
to the stable slip bands (Fig. 3b) with the forming of
microcracks in the grains and along the grain boundaries.
Figure 4a presents the dependence of the fractal
dimension DF of the AE signals in the cyclic loading of
the OT-4 titanium alloy, and also shows the attractors
(indicated by the numerals 1 to 6) of the structural
changes in the specimens of the OT-4 alloy that were
reconstructed from the AE signals with the various
numbers of loading cycles. Figure 4b presents the
dependence of the Shannon information entropy Su on
the number of loading cycles. Similar relations were
obtained in the cyclic loading of the specimens of steel
20 [18].
These studies made it possible to identify our pro-
posed criteria (the fractal dimension and the informa-
tion entropy) for evaluating the structural state of the
deformed materials in real time and compare this with
the results of the electron-microscope studies of the
structural transformations, and the micro- and mac-
rodamages of the materials. There was established a
correlation between the changes of the forms of the
AE signals in time and the multilevel nature of the
structural changes that are caused by the collective
motion of the defects with the forming of the various
types of substructure (see Fig. 2), and the forming of
the stable microdamage and macrodamage slip bands
(see Figs. 1b and 3b).
We investigated on the basis of the electron-micro-
scope studies, the fractal analysis of the AE signals, and
the reconstruction on this basis of the attractors (see
Fig. 4a) the mechanisms of the structural changes in the

RUSSIAN ENGINEERING RESEARCH Vol. 27 No. 8 2007

516 KABALDIN, MURAV’YEV
(‡)
(b)
Fig. 3. Electron photomicrographs illustrating the structural
changes with cyclic loading of OT-4 alloy specimens: (a)
slip lines in the grain (×350); (b) stable slip bands (×500).
defect subsystem of the materials. It was established
that the substructure changes in the fatigue tests are
associated with the chaotic nature of the processes in
the defect subsystem and are accompanied by change
of the shape of the attractor from its limit cycle to an
n-dimensional torus. The limit cycle corresponds to the
chaotization of the dislocation structure (points 1 and 2
in Fig. 4a) in the initial loading cycles (the initial loss
of structural stability—bifurcation), and thereafter its
temporal evolution is also realized as a result of the cha-
otic nature of the processes in the defect subsystem,
which confirms the growth of the dimension of the
attractors from DF ≥ 1 to DF ≤ 3 (points 4, 5, 6 in
Fig. 4a). The growth of the fractal dimension also indi-
cates that in the defect subsystem there takes place both
periodic temporal organization and also periodic spatial
organization (ordering) of the structure as a result of the
increase of the number of the degrees of freedom.
The analysis of the electron-microscope studies, the
fractal and wavelet analysis, and the evaluation of the
information entropy in the analysis of the AE signals in
the course of the fatigue tests showed that the evolution
of the defect structure is associated with the accumula-
tion of both entropy and information in the system with
the aid of the dissipative structures in the cyclically
deformed volumes. This is accompanied by the estab-
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lishing in the defect subsystem of an order parameter,
which thanks to the subordination principle performs
the role of an informator and controls the structural
transformations from the chaotic dislocation structure
that forms in the initial loading cycles to the cellular
structure and later to the fragmented structure and the
banded structure with the subsequent forming of the
microcracks.
We developed on the basis of these studies the
mechanism of the influence of the information on the
self-organization process in the defect subsystem and
the appearance of the collective effects. The essence of
this mechanism is as follows. Upon the forming of a
dislocation, a local internal stress is created and it radi-
ates a signal (which can be recorded as an AE signal),
i.e., it transmits a certain amount of information that is
summed in the course of the forming of the other dislo-
cations. The result is the forming of an internal
mechanical stress field as a consequence of the highly
coordinated interaction of the dislocations, which with
their density p ≈ pcrit, i.e., with the critical parameters in
the subsystem, leads to the collective effects. Thus, the
internal mechanical stress field is both an order param-
eter and an informator: on the one hand, it is created by
the dislocations and, on the other hand, it controls the
dislocations on the basis of the subordination principle,
imparting to the dislocations the information (the sig-
nal) with pcrit for their rearrangement into a structure
with more information and, consequently, into the more
stable (ordered) cellular structure (see Fig. 2c).
In the course of the subsequent substructure trans-
formations (nonequilibrium phase changes), the role of
the information is retained and even increases with the
aid of the resulting new dissipative (fragmented) struc-
tures, while the preceding structure, transmitting the
information to the new structure, determines in a signif-
icant measure its effectiveness as a result of self-orga-
nization in the defect subsystem. Consequently, the
defect subsystem is nonlinear, which leads to the peri-
odic, chaotic state in it and the structural transitions to
a more stable state upon breakdown of the preceding
coherent structures. The ability of the defect subsystem
to accumulate information in the course of the struc-
tural transformations indicates that is has memory. It
follows from the foregoing analysis that the informa-
tion may be the carrier of the collective self-organiza-
tion modes.
We should also note that the dimension of the cells
in the substructure is a quantity of the order of 2–3 nm.
Therefore we can classify the structural transforma-
tions in the defect subsystem as nanostructuring.
The informational self-organization mechanism
agrees well with the definition of the fractal as consist-
ing of parts that are similar to the whole. In other words,
the fractals have scale invariance. We can presume that
the information can also act as a carrier of the collective
self-organization modes on the various structural
(scale) deformation levels.
Vol. 27 No. 8 2007
 INFORMATION MODELS OF SELF-ORGANIZATION 517

DF
3.0 (a)
5 6
2.5
4
2.0
3
1.5 1 2

1.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
N, 104 cycles
Structural change attractors
1 2 3 4 5 6

Su, nat
5.5
(b)
5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
N, 104 cycles

Fig. 4. Dependences of fractal dimension DF (a) and information entropy Su (b) on the number N of loading cycles of the OT-4
alloy: cyclic load σcy ≈ 282 MPa, frequency f = 22.5 Hz.

These studies also made it possible to suggest the
informational mechanism of the genesis of the fatigue
microcracks as a result of the sequential, self-consistent
(cooperative) structural changes on the various infor-
mation levels. On the lowest level, the transition of the
chaotic dislocation structure to the cellular and frag-
mented structure is controlled by the internal mechani-
cal stress field, which is the order parameter and the
informator. Upon the formation of the slip bands in the
favorably oriented grains and the transition to the
higher structural deformation level, the accumulated
information is transferred to the adjacent grains or to
the near-surface deformation zone with the forming of
the stable slip bands in the grains or the creation of
microcracks at the junctures of the grains, i.e., as a
result of the exchange of information and the coordi-
nated action between the structural elements (the grains
and the grain junctions). In accordance with the subor-
dination principle, the system transitions to a new and
more stable state with the forming of dissipative struc-
tures (microcracks). This period is defined by the
degree of the strain hardening and the degree of the
residual plasticity capacity of the material.
The developed informational mechanism of the self-
organization process in the defect subsystem also made
it possible to model the AE signals on the basis of the
neural networks and thereby predict the fatigue failure on
the basis of the information criterion (the Shannon infor-
mation entropy). Figure 5 presents the dependence of Su
on the number N of the loading cycles in modeling the

RUSSIAN ENGINEERING RESEARCH Vol. 27 No. 8 2007

518 KABALDIN, MURAV’YEV
Su, nat
5.0
4.5
Su = 4.25
4.0
3.5
3.0
Experiment
2.5
Prediction
2.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
N, 104 cycles
Fig. 5. Dependences of information entropy Su on the
number N of loading cycles in experimental studies and in
neuronet modeling of the AE signals (σcy ≈ 282 MPa, f =
22.5 Hz).
AE signal, and also the results of the experimental stud-
ies of the OT-4 titanium alloy specimens. The studies
showed that the error of the prediction of the fatigue fail-
ure does not exceed 15 to 20%, which is quite accept-
able. Consequently, having the results of the fatigue tests
with certain loading conditions (stress and frequency)
along with the recording of the AE signals, we can sim-
ulate on their basis the new AE signal with the loading
conditions that will ensure the required service life.
Thus, the developed new criteria for evaluating the
structural state of the materials and the information
mechanism of the self-organization process in the
metallic materials make it possible to predict their
fatigue strength in real time. The studies showed that
the proposed self-organization mechanism makes it
possible to resolve with success another urgent problem
of materials science—the development of new materi-
als with specified properties.
An important direction in materials science is the
hardening of the materials (parts) to reduce the local-
ization of the deformations with cyclic loading that lead
to the forming of microcracks. In this connection the
possibility for rational increase of the resistance of the
materials to failure in the plastic deformation processes
(extrusion, rolling, forging, and so on) becomes evi-
dent. Specifically, by imparting to the structure of the
material in the hardening process the information that is
needed for its transition to a more stable state.
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