In-situ monitoring of ultrasonic attenuation during rotating bending fatigue of carbon steel with electromagnetic acoustic resonance

Using electromagnetic acoustic resonance (EMAR), we studied the evolution of the surface-shear-wave attenuation and phase velocity during rotating bending fatigue of a 0.45% C steel. In the EMAR method, we used a magnetostrictively-coupled electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) for the contactless measurements of the axial shear wave that is a surface-shear wave, propagating in a cylinder-specimen circumference direction with the axial polarization. The attenuation coefficient always showed sharp peaks around 90% of the fatigue life, independent of the fatigue-stress amplitude. In addition to the ultrasonic measurements, we made crack-growth observations using replicas and measured recovery of attenuation and velocity after stopping the cyclic loading just before and after the peak. From these results, we concluded that the evolution of the ultrasonic properties is caused by a drastic change in dislocation mobility being accompanied by the crack growth.