Fatigue and fracture-induced defect structures of metals investigated by positron microscopy

Defect distributions close to cracks from monotonic and fatigue fractures have been investigated for the first time by positron lifetime studies. The positron beams probe either the depth profile of defects at sub-μm resolution or the lateral distribution of defects at a few μm spatial resolution. Both in pure Cu and in the precipitation-hardened alloy Al 6013, in addition to dislocations, large clusters of up to 30 vacancies were detected close to a fatigue crack exclusively, whereas at monotonic fractures only the annihilation characteristics of dislocations were observed. If this characteristic difference holds as a general rule, then positron lifetime microscopy will provide a simple, quantitative method to distinguish a posteriori monotonic fractures from fatigue fractures without any further fractographic studies. (orig.)