Critical Dynamics of Defects and Mechanisms of Damage-Failure Transitions in Fatigue

An experimental methodology was developed for estimating a very high cycle fatigue (VHCF) life of the aluminum alloy AMG-6 subjected to preliminary deformation. The analysis of fatigue damage staging is based on the measurement of elastic modulus decrement according to “in situ” data of nonlinear dynamics of free-end specimen vibrations at the VHCF test. The correlation of fatigue damage staging and fracture surface morphology was studied to establish the scaling properties and kinetic equations for damage localization, “fish-eye” nucleation, and transition to the Paris crack kinetics. These equations, based on empirical parameters related to the structure of the material, allows us to estimate the number of cycles for the nucleation and advance of fatigue crack.