A Comparison of Fatigue Properties of Austempered Versus Quenched and Tempered 4340 Steel

This study was conducted to determine if austempered 4340 steel had different fatigue resistance compared to quench and tempered (Q&T) 4340 steel with an identical hardness of nominally 45 HRC and an identical yield strength of nominally 1340?MPa (194?ksi). Strain-life and stress-life fatigue testing was conducted at room temperature under identical test conditions. The standard array of strain-life and stress-life regression constants was obtained. The two heat treatments produced virtually identical total strain-life curves and fatigue limits at 5 million cycles. However, the two materials exhibited different trends in the elastic and plastic strain regimes. The austempered steel exhibited greater high cycle fatigue (finite) lives than the Q&T samples at comparable elastic strain amplitudes in strain-life fatigue testing and at comparable stress amplitudes in stress-life fatigue testing. However, the Q&T samples exhibited greater low cycle fatigue lives than the austempered samples at comparable plastic strain amplitudes in strain-life testing. Although both materials generally exhibited similar fatigue fracture characteristics, the overload regions of the Q&T samples were composed entirely of dimple rupture, whereas the austempered samples exhibited both dimple rupture and quasicleavage.