Fatigue characterization and modeling of 30CrNiMo8HH under multiaxial loading

Fatigue of 30CrNiMo8HH steel alloy has been studied thoroughly. Uniaxial cyclic tension-compression, cyclic torsion, proportional tension-torsion, and non-proportional tension-torsion at various strain ratios have been considered. Tests were performed at standard laboratory conditions on solid and tubular specimens machined from an actual driveline component. Fractography was conducted on the tested samples to investigate the fatigue mechanisms involved. Under torsion, large numbers of early micro cracks were found to emanate from the sample's surface, with a few propagating into very long longitudinal cracks. In biaxial tests, cracks tend to propagate into the gauge reducing the cross section area. A strain energy density fatigue parameter has been employed for life prediction of the material under uniaxial and biaxial loading. The life prediction method is based on two different cracking mechanisms that agree with the observed cracking mechanisms in torsion and biaxial loading of 30CrNiMo8HH steel alloy studied here. Energy-based properties are obtained and the predicted lives are compared to experimental results. The results obtained agree well with experiments.