The role of pits as stress raisers and their influence on fatigue life has been investigated for a 12Cr turbine blade material. A particular feature of this work was the establishment of an electrochemical procedure for generating pits with ‘controlled’ pit depth and low density.
Pits grown under laboratory conditions were partially spherical in shape and simulated, in general appearance, those observed in service. In terms of the threshold stress intensity factor, the results supported the concept of pits acting as effective cracks of the same depth, provided that a short crack model based on an effective crack length is used.