Environmental fatigue crack propagation in Ti-6Al-4V sheet

Abstract

A study was made of environmental fatigue crack propagation in 2.5 mm thick Ti-6A1-4V sheet conforming to AMS 4911, and 2.2 mm thick IMI 318 conforming to BS TA 10. The environments were dry argon, normal air, distilled water and 3.5 pct aqueous NaCl. There were three alloy/orientation combinations: Ti-6A1-4V L-T, IMI 318 L-T and IMI 318 T-L. Test frequencies were 30 and 50 Hz, at which there was a general trend of higher crack growth rates in the order: argon, air, distilled water, 3.5 pct aqueous NaCl. For both dry argon and 3.5 pct aqueous NaCl there were large differences in crack growth rates at low δK values between the three types of specimen. There was a correlation between the texture and cleavage fracture and crack growth rates in 3.5 pct aqueous NaCl. This result is of considerable practical importance. For dry argon the ranking of specimen types could be explained by the relative importance of mechanical and environmental crack growth, using the structure-sensitive to structure-insensitive transition concept of Irving and Beevers.