Fatigue crack growth is examined in P/M 2124 aluminum alloys reinforced with SiC particles (SiCp) and whiskers (SiCw) over a wide spectrum of growth rates from 10 to 10 m per cycle. Effects of aging treatment, orientation of crack growth direction with respect to the rolling direction, mean stress (or stress ratio), and reinforcement volume percent on the fatigue crack growth threshold are inve...

Understanding the fatigue crack growth phenomenon in railheads requires a study of driving forces such as the crack tip opening and sliding displacements, under repeated rolling contact. Finite element simulations, allowing elastic-plastic deformation, and mixed-mode crack growth laws were utilized to demonstrate that the fatigue crack growth rates display a minimum after a finite amount of cra...

Plasticity-induced, roughness-induced and oxide-induced crack closures are reviewed. Special attention is devoted to the physical origin, the consequences for the experimental determination and the prediction of the effective crack driving force for fatigue crack propagation. Plasticity-induced crack closure under plane stress and plane strain conditions require, in principle, a different expla...

Article history: Received 5 July 2012 Received in revised form 25 September 2012 Accepted 29 September 2012 The fatigue crack growth of the nickel-based superalloy Haynes 230 was investigated at room temperature and 900 °C using digital image correlation (DIC). As expected, the crack growth rates at high temperature were much faster than at room temperature. However, the crack closure levels, w...

Ni-Ti shape memory alloy fiber embedded resin matrix composites were produced for evaluation of "smart denture", a newly developing denture with the function to close its own crack. Their bending strength and shape recovery after instant crack repair was estimated. The embedded fibers did not decrease the bending strength of the composite after repair. The crack closure of the composites was pe...