Three-Orthogonal-Direction Stress Mapping around a Fatigue-Crack Tip Using Neutron Diffraction

Quantitative determination of the stress fields around the crack tip is a challenging and important subject to understand the fatigue crack-growth mechanism. In the current study, we measured the distribution of residual stresses and the evolution of the stress fields around a fatigue crack tip subjected to the constant-amplitude cyclic loading in a 304L stainless steel compact-tension (CT) specimen. The three orthogonal stress components (i.e., crack growth, crack opening, and through thickness) of the CT specimen were determined as a function of distance from the crack tip with 1-mm spatial resolution along the crack-propagation direction. In-situ neutron-diffraction results show that the enlarged tensile stresses were developed during loading along the through-thickness direction at a localized volume close to the crack tip, resulting in the lattice expansion in all three orthogonal directions during P _max. The current study suggests that the atypical plane strainlike behavior observed at the midthickness position might be the reason for the mechanism of the faster crack-growth rate inside the interior than that near the surface.