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Near-threshold fatigue crack growth in bulk metallic glass composites

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Abstract

A major drawback in using bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) as structural materials is their extremely poor fatigue performance. One way to alleviate this problem is through the composite route, in which second phases are introduced into the glass to arrest crack growth. In this paper, the fatigue crack growth behavior of in situ reinforced BMGs with crystalline dendrites, which are tailored to impart significant ductility and toughness to the BMG, was investigated. Three composites, all with equal volume fraction of dendrite phases, were examined to assess the influence of chemical composition on the near-threshold fatigue crack growth characteristics. While the ductility is enhanced at the cost of yield strength vis-à-vis that of the fully amorphous BMG, the threshold stress intensity factor range for fatigue crack initiation in composites was found to be enhanced by more than 100%. Crack blunting and trapping by the dendritic phases and constraining of the shear bands within the interdendritic regions are the micromechanisms responsible for this enhanced fatigue crack growth resistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-, 560012, India

    Kombaiah Boopathy & Upadrasta Ramamurty

  2. Keck Laboratory for Engineering Materials, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 91125, USA

    Douglas C. Hofmann & William L. Johnson

  3. Liquidmetal Technologies, 30452, Esperanza, Rancho Santa Margarita California, 92688, USA

    Douglas C. Hofmann

Authors
  1. Kombaiah Boopathy
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  2. Douglas C. Hofmann
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  3. William L. Johnson
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  4. Upadrasta Ramamurty
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Correspondence to Upadrasta Ramamurty.

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Boopathy, K., Hofmann, D.C., Johnson, W.L. et al. Near-threshold fatigue crack growth in bulk metallic glass composites. Journal of Materials Research 24, 3611–3619 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2009.0439

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2009.0439

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