Creep-fatigue behaviour of the titanium alloy IMI 834 at 600 C

In the present study the creep-fatigue behaviour of the titanium alloy IMI 834 at 600 C was investigated. A comparison of the crack initiation life behaviour and of the crack propagation as caused by different types of complex creep-fatigue cycles (with hold times into tension and/or into compression direction and with different loading rates into tension and/or into compression direction) showed, that a slow increase of the loadings into tension reduced the life and increased the crack velocity more than hold times at the maximum load. Furthermore, there existed environmental influences. On the basis of the experimental investigations the prediction capability of convenient crack initiation life prediction methods was evaluated. It turned out that the prediction capability of the strain range partitioning method could be improved if it was frequency modified. The prediction capability of the frequency modification method could also be improved, if mean stresses in the cycles were explicitely accounted for. In the short and long crack stage the propagation behaviour could be correlated well if the effective cyclic J-integral was used. This is of importance for damage tolerance considerations. Because the strains and the stresses at the crack tip are most important for the crack propagation behaviour, they were analysed on the basis of the finite element method. It was found that the strains and stresses differed for different types of creep-fatigue cycles. (orig.)