Issue 41

G. Meneghetti et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 41 (2017) 299-306; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.41.40 303 separate the specimen starting from the configuration shown in Fig. 3 was  N f =69840 cycles. The relevant temperature profile evaluated at  =0° and the heat flux h calculated along the boundary of V c are reported in Fig. 4a and Fig. 4b, respectively. For the same fatigue life, the characteristic energy of plain specimens made of the same material and loaded with the same load ratio can be found in ref. [15], to which the reader is referred, and is equal to Q=Q*=0.66 MJ/(m 3 •cycle). As a final step, the control radius R c was iteratively varied in Fig. 3a until the averaged heat loss Q* calculated inside V c by means of spatial gradient technique – Eq. (2) - was equal to the characteristic value 0.66 MJ/(m 3 •cycle). The result was R c =0.65 mm. By repeating such a procedure using additional three specimens, the results reported in Tab. 2 were obtained, where a mean value R c =0.52 mm was calculated. a (1) (mm)  N f (/) Q* (2) (MJ/(m 3 cycle))  K (MPa√m) R c (1) (mm) 9.803 69840 0.66 32.7 0.65 19.035 82001 0.61 33.0 0.45 14.969 62221 0.69 35.0 0.42 8.475 46263 0.80 38.0 0.55 Mean value 0.52 (1) see Fig. 1a; (2) From Eq. (2) Table 2 : Experimental value of the structural volume size of the AISI 304L stainless steel tested in uniaxial tension-compression fatigue. Fig. 5 shows, as an example, the distribution of the specific energy flux per cycle q measured along the boundary of V c (R c =0.52 mm) at different applied  K values; q is obtained by simply dividing h by f L. . Figure 5 : Distribution of the specific energy flux per cycle q along the boundary of structural volume V c at different  K values (specimen V_45_R01_17). C RACK GROWTH DATA ig. 6a shows a typical crack configuration captured by the digital microscope during a fatigue test. The raw crack propagation data are shown in Fig. 6b. Having the crack length vs the number of cycles, the crack growth rate da/dN was calculated. The Peak Stress Method [16] was adopted to evaluate the Mode I Stress Intensity Factor -90.0° -112.5° -135.0° -157.5° 180.0° 157.5° 135.0° 112.5° 90.0° 67.5° 45.0° 22.5° 0.0° -22.5° -67.5° -45.0° DK= 40.86 DK= 51.03 DK= 92.88 10 5 q [J/(m 2  cycle)] 10 10 3 10 4  .9 MPa·  m  .3 MPa·  m  92.9 MPa·  m F