Issue 41

M. Sakane et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 41 (2017) 16-23; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS41.03 22 Figure 9 : Variation of average crack length with strain range in torsion low cycle fatigue of SUS 394 stainless steel. Figure 10 : Aspect ratio of principal and shear cracks in torsion low cycle fatigue of SUS 304 stainless steel. Considering that a crack propagates in a direction to release strain energy most, elastic-plastic strain energy release by a crack formation was analyzed by a finite element method for three models. The three models have a same cracked area but the cracking direction is changed. Two models have a deep semi-circular crack, 2 mm surface length and 1 mm depth, one directing to principal orientation (Model A) and the other to shear orientation (Model B). The third model has a shear shallow crack with 5 mm surface length and 0.4 mm depth directing to shear direction (Model C). The energy release of Model C is larger than that of Model B at high strain ranges but the latter showed larger energy release than the former at low strain ranges. The results of the energy release well accounts for the transition of crack direction depending on strain range from an energy release viewpoint. The graphical representation of this discussion is not presented from the shortage of the space of the paper. The cracking direction in torsion LCF depends on material and the discussion on this topic is made in the literatures [16,17] in detail.