Analysis of the initial stage of fatigue wear in heterostructure materials under contact cyclic loading

Abstract

Introduction. The process of formation of fatigue defects in metal alloys with different structural morphology is considered. The work objective is to develop a computational tool for determining the moment of the defect nucleation under cyclic loading.Materials and Methods. A physical model is built, calculation expressions are presented. The physical model is based on the theory of dislocations. It is shown that a structure factor is particularly important in the process of fracture nucleus origination under dynamic cyclic loading. Depending on the structure and properties of the material, as well as on the nature of the loads, the critical fatigue defect develops in the form of cracks, pores or micro-crater wear.Research Results. A numerical experiment was performed to determine the moment of nucleation of the critical-size defect in iron-base alloys under the drop hypervelocity impacts. Comparative data of calculations and bench tests for droplet impingement erosion of steels and alloys with the structure of ferrite, austenite, sorbitol and martensite are presented. The efficiency of the nucleation stage during the incubation period of erosive wear of the materials studied was evaluated.Discussion and Conclusions. There are no strict instrumental methods for determining the duration of the nucleation stage; therefore, it is recommended to use the proposed analytical model. In addition, the work performed gave a significant application result, i.e. it showed that the focused design of the material structure can significantly increase the wear resistance.