Evaluation of Fatigue Crack Growth Rates in an IPE Beam Made of AISI 304 under Various Stress Ratios

Abstract

Stainless steel is a material which is widely used in various environments, including structural, load-bearing components of buildings. Almost every engineering structure is exposed to cyclic loading, which results in fatigue damage of the material, which could, in combination with discontinuities (cracks, flaws, etc.) already existing in every material, lead to the failure of the structural part, or worse, to the failure of the whole civil structure. To understand the behavior, we prepared an experimental campaign of a stainless-steel IPE 80 beam in three-point bending under cyclic load. In total, three specimens with different stress ratios (R = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5) were tested and Paris’ material’s constants were evaluated and compared for the AISI 304 stainless steel material.Stainless steel is a material which is widely used in various environments, including structural, load-bearing components of buildings. Almost every engineering structure is exposed to cyclic loading, which results in fatigue damage of the material, which could, in combination with discontinuities (cracks, flaws, etc.) already existing in every material, lead to the failure of the structural part, or worse, to the failure of the whole civil structure. To understand the behavior, we prepared an experimental campaign of a stainless-steel IPE 80 beam in three-point bending under cyclic load. In total, three specimens with different stress ratios (R = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5) were tested and Paris’ material’s constants were evaluated and compared for the AISI 304 stainless steel material.