The effect of grain size on the fatigue of commercially pure aluminium

Fully reversed uniaxial fatigue tests were performed on polished hour-glass specimens of commercially pure aluminium with three different grain sizes, in order to examine the effect of grain size on fatigue. The growth of surface cracks was monitored by a plastic replication method. An improvement in fatigue strength was observed, as the polycrystal grain size was refined. The endurance limit stress was shown to depend on the inverse square root of the grain size as described empirically by a type of Hall-Petch relation. The effect of refining grain size on fatigue crack growth is to increase the number of microstructural barriers to the advancing crack and to reduce the slip length ahead of the crack tip, and thereby lower the crack growth rate. Multiple crack initiation and growth is a feature of the fatigue of aluminium, while the grain size influences the specific detail of crack coalescence. Crack path deviation is greatest in the coarse grained microstructure and crack surface roughness is more pronounced. SEM fractography reveals that crack initiation and early crack growth takes place along crystallographic slip planes, and that fatigue striations, characteristic of stage II cracking, extend to the very edge of the specimen section, suggesting extensive crack tip blunting.