Conducting a fatigue test on 1018 steel and 360 free cutting brass for

both standard and notched samples

Muayad Alhilal

UNC Charlotte, Department of Mechanical Engineering, ME3152; Mechanics and

Materials Laboratory

Preformed on: March 13, 2018

Reported on: March 24, 2018
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................3
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.........................................................................................................5
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................9
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................ 10

2
Introduction
Fatigue could be defined as the failure of metals due to a cyclic dynamic stress. The failure may
occur at a stress lower than the ultimate stress of the metals. Moreover, fatigue failure is a common
phenomenon in applications subjected to repetitive stresses in a form of tension and compression,
bending, vibration, and thermal expansion and contraction. In fact, fatigue failure is the reason
behind why aircrafts components have a finite life12. Scientists have been studying this failure to
avoid it by altering the design of a part and/or considering the material properties. The study of the
fatigue can be accomplished by using a machine to apply a dynamic stress on the sample to obtain
the fatigue life of that particular material. However, there is a struggle due to the time required to
preform these tests since weeks are needed to obtain informative results.

Fatigue has three main stages which are initiation, propagation, and final rupture. Scientists have
studied the initiation stage so that fatigue failure can be avoided in the first place. The initiation
zone tends to occur at the point where the highest stress occurs. On the fracture surface, the
initiation zone is the lowest area comparing with the two other stages. Furthermore, the
propagation stage is where the microcrack starts to grow perpendicular to the direction of the stress.
The propagation stage is the most stage that can be identified and recognized. As the propagation
continues, the cross section area is reduced causing a higher stress on the part. The final rupture
stage is when the part suddenly breaks. Microscopic and macroscopic examinations reveal a
pattern of fatigue fracture mode.3

Figure 1 Fatigue fracture surface 1 Figure 2 S-N curve for tool steel and aluminum alloy 1

Fatigue test could determine the fatigue life of a part under known stress conditions. The endurance
limit, which is the stress below which there is no fatigue failure, can be determined from the S-N
curve (amplitude stress vs. number of cycles). In addition, the fatigue life of a part, which is the
number of cycles that a part can live before the fatigue failure under a known cyclic stress, can be
determined from the S-N curve. For instance, the tool steel has a fatigue life of 100,0000 cycles
under 90,000 psi.

Figure 2 shows the S-N curve for both tool steel (ferrous) and aluminum alloy (nonferrous). The
trends of both curves indicate that there are different characteristics of the ferrous and non ferrous
metals. For instance, fatigue occurs above a critical stress, which is the endurance limit, for ferrous
metals while fatigue occurs ultimately at any stress level for nonferrous metals. Also, the
nonferrous metals tend to have a lower fatigue strength, which is the stress at a known number of
cycles, than ferrous metals.1

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The cyclic stress that is applied could be classified as reversed stress, repeated stress, and random
stress. The reversed stress cycle has the same magnitude while reversing between tension and
compression. The repeated stress cycle has a higher tension stress than the compression. Lastly,
the random stress has a random magnitude with respect to time. Moreover, the amplitude stress is
the difference between the maximum and minimum stresses over two.14

a. b. c.

Figure 3 Cyclic stresses. (a) reversed stress cycle. (b) repeated stress cycle. (c) random stress cycle (source:
www.nde-ed.org)

Furthermore, the crack growth can be predicted if the material is known. Before a threshold ∆𝑘,
which is a number characterizes the geometry and stress, there is no crack growth. However, the
crack starts slowly just after the ∆𝑘. Then, the crack grows in a constant rate that can be calculated
using the power law behavior equation where C and n are material constants. After a critical point,
the crack growths rapidly until a point where fatigue fracture occurs1. See Figure 4.

𝑑𝑎
= 𝐶 ∆𝑘 𝑛 Eqn. (1)
𝑑𝑁

𝑑𝑎
Where 𝑑𝑁 is the crack growth rate and
C is a material constant in Pa and
∆𝑘 is the geometry and stress number in Pa √𝑚 and
n is a material constant

Figure 4 Crack growth rate vs. stress intensity factor 1

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Results and Discussion
A fatigue test was conducted on two different materials which are 1018 steel and 360 free cutting
brass. For each material, two specimens were tested under ten different loads to observe the
deference between a normal sample and a notched sample. The row data was collected and S-N
curves were plotted to compare the actual results with the expected theoretical trend of S-N curve.

Table 1 Summary of fatigue test data for 1018 steel

Diameter (in) Fatigue Data
Sample Stress
Diameter for Diameter for
Load (lbf) Cycles to failure (MPa)
Normal Area Notched Area
0.301 N/A 4750 879 460
0.301 N/A 4800 840 465
0.31 N/A 4850 706 443
0.3 N/A 4900 498 478
1018 0.303 N/A 4950 799 474
Steel 0.302 N/A 5000 352 482
0.309 N/A 5050 521 465
0.306 N/A 5100 357 478
0.3 N/A 5150 317 503
0.301 N/A 5200 287 504
Notched NA 0.292 5050 151 520

Table 1 shows the collected data for both normal and notched 1018 steel tested under ten different
loads. It is observed that under high stresses, the material tends to have a low number of cycles to
failure comparing with low stresses which matches the theoretical expectations. However, it was
expected that while the stress increases, the number of cycles is decreasing. Not all the values are
aligned with the expectations. Some values were significantly off from the trend of the values.

S-N Curve of 1018 Steel

540
Normal
Stress Amplitude (MPa)

520 Notched
500 Log. (Normal)

480

460

440

420
100 1000
Cycles to Failure (N)
Figure 5 S-N Curve of normal 1018 Steel and a notched sample

Figure 5 shows the S-N curve of the 1018 steel. It is noticed that there some values off from the
trend line. However, the overall trend is identical to the theoretical S-N plot. The number of cycles
is increasing while the stress decreases. Furthermore, it is difficult to preform the test and collect
sufficient data due to the time required to obtain results at low stresses. The number of cycles could

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reach 106 cycles before the failure which is about 12 days assuming one cycle takes a second of
time. Therefore, the plot does not cover all the S-N curve. Instead, it covers a small portion of the
S-N curve. Moreover, the notched sample had a fatigue life of 151 cycles while the normal sample
under the same stress had a fatigue life of 521 cycles. This significant difference is due to the fact
that the notched sample tends to have a concentrated stress which is higher than the stress applied
on a normal sample. As a result, the number of cycles to failure is decreasing. Thus, engineers
design a part while avoiding such a stress raiser as much as possible to increase the fatigue life of
the part.

Table 2 Summary of fatigue test data for 360 free cutting brass
Diameter (in) Fatigue Data
Stress
Sample Diameter for Diameter for Cycles to
Load (lbf) (MPa)
Normal Area Notched Area failure
0.302 N/A 3530 421 340
0.302 N/A 3550 428 342
0.304 N/A 3430 573 326
0.302 N/A 3450 624 332
360 0.304 N/A 3470 638 330
Brass 0.302 N/A 3410 717 328
0.305 N/A 3490 721 330
0.302 N/A 3390 738 326
0.3 N/A 3510 844 343
0.302 N/A 3370 1025 325
Notched 0.303 0.29 3430 83 328

Table 2 shows the collected date of the brass samples. The data shows a similarity between the
1018 steel and the free cutting brass in terms of the overall trend. The material tends to have low
fatigue life under high stresses. However, it is observed that a relative high cut of the fatigue life
occurs in a small range of the applied stress. For instance, the table shows that at 325 MPa the
material has a fatigue life of 1025 cycles while at 340 MPa, which is relatively close, the material
has a fatigue life of 420 cycles. This indicates that the brass is more sensitive to the fatigue life in
terms of the applied stress. Moreover, as like the notched steel sample, the notched brass sample
tends to have a lower fatigue life when the same stress amplitude is applied. The reason is that the
notched sample has a concentrated stress due to the notch causing a higher stress and a lower
fatigue life. In comparison, the steel tends to withstand a higher stress at the same number of cycles
than the brass. For example, at about 840 cycles, the steel can withstand a stress of 465 MPa while
the brass can withstand a stress of 343 MPa. The reason is that the steel has more strength than the
brass so that the initial crack was more difficult to grow. Unfortunately, no data at the same stress
for both metals was collected to verify the relationship between metals and fatigue life. However,
it is predicted that at the same stress, the steel will have a higher fatigue life than the brass due to
its strength.

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 S-N Curve of 360 Brass
344

Stress Amplitude (MPa)

342 Normal
340
338 Notched
336
334 Log. (Normal)
332
330
328
326
324
322
50 500 5000
Cycles to Faliure (N)

Figure 6 S-N Curve od 360 Brass

Figure 6 shows the S-N curve for the 360 free cutting brass. The point data were off from the
trending line due to the lack of time to preform the tests with low stresses which will need days
and weeks. However, the graph shows that there is an increase of fatigue life while the applied
amplitude stress is decreased. It is hard to explain however why some points were off from the
trending line since it is already known that the fatigue life and the amplitude stress have an inverse
relationship. The fatigue test requires large amount of time to establish an explanation of this
phenomenon.

Figure 7 schematic drawing of fatigue failure for 1018 steel. (a) top view of notched sample. (b) top view of normal
sample. (c) side view of notched sample. (d) side view of normal sample.

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In figure 7.a, the notched surface shows that the cracks start from all around the part to the middle
until rupture occurs. The rupture area ununiformed and unstable due to the fast growth of the
cracks. Unlike the normal sample, the crack starts from a point at the surface then growing with
beaches until rupture occurs. The side views of the sample match the surface features. At the crack
growing stage, a stable crack is growing. At the rupture, the crack grows rapidly causing the
surface crack to be unstable. The surface was analyzed for both the normal and notched samples
in terms of the fatigue and rupture areas.

Table 3 summary of fatigue and rupture areas for both 1018 steel and 360 brass
Material Sample Beach area Fast fracture area
Normal 60% 40%
1018 Steel
Notched 30% 70%
Normal 20% 80%
360 Brass
Notched 10% 90%

Table 3 shows that in the notched sample the fast fracture area which is the rupture area is higher
than the beach area which is the fatigue area. In addition, it shows that the beach area of the normal
steel is higher than the beach area of the normal brass. This is predicted since the steel can
withstand a higher stress than the brass.

8
References
1. Askeland, Donald R., Pradeep P. Fulay, Wendelin J. Wright, and D. K. Bhattacharya.
2011. The Science and Engineering of Materials. Stamford (CT): Cengage Learning.
2. Sondalini, Mike. 2017. "Metal Fatigue Failure Theory and Design Considerations."
Accendo Reliability. Accessed March 24, 2018.
https://accendoreliability.com/metal-fatigue-failure/.
3. TEC Eurolab Srl."Stages of Fatigue Failure." TEC Eurolab Srl. Accessed March 24, 2018.
https://www.tec-eurolab.com/eu-en/stages-of-fatigue-failure.aspx.
4. Xu, Terry. 2018.“Lecture 7: Fatigue of Metals” MEGR3152: Mechanics and Materials
Labs.

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Appendices

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