Local plasticity exhaustion in a very high cycle fatigue regime

Very high cycle fatigue behaviors of four metal materials with different microstructures have been studied focusing on their damage mechanisms. It was found that the cyclic plastic deformation in the materials was highly localized in the very high cycle regime or the elastic deformation regime. This high strain localization can cause local plasticity exhaustion, which leads to a stress concentration and consequently fatigue crack initation, and finally the formation of a subsurface non-defect fatigue crack origin. (C) 2012 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.