Fatigue life assessment of a high strength steel 300 M in the gigacycle regime

The fatigue behavior of a high strength steel 300 M in the gigacycle regime was investigated. Fully reversed tension - compression fatigue tests at ambient temperature were performed using an ultrasonic fatigue system operating at 20 kHz. The staircase test method was employed to obtain accurate values of the mean fatigue strength corresponding to fixed numbers of cycles up to 10(9). These results were compared to the curve which is estimated by the data tested in the mid-long life regime on conventional servo hydraulic test machine at 20 Hz. Results indicate that the fatigue strength determined from ultrasonic fatigue testing is lightly higher than conventional testing in the range of 10(6)-10(7) cycles. It is obvious that nucleations of fractures tend to occur below the surface, if fractures happen after more than 107 cycles. All the fractured specimens fails from internal SiO2 inclusions or smaller carbides and carbide clusters. (C) 2012 The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.