An overview on the influence of the atmosphere environment on ultra-high-cycle fatigue and ultra-slow fatigue crack propagation

This paper deals with an overview on the effect of environment on ultra-long fatigue life and ultra-slow fatigue crack propagation. Testing facilities allowing the investigation of such fatigue regimes have opened new field of exploration for the understanding of some basic concepts such as the fatigue limit and the threshold for fatigue crack propagation. High frequency tests are also of considerable interest when one intends to study the influence of time dependent factors such as those depending of the surrounding environment. To date very little literature is related to this topic but the few existing papers give valuable information when comparing with available literature on fatigue at conventional frequencies. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.