Crack growth in a new nickel-based superalloy at elevated temperature - Part I - Effects of loading waveform and frequency on crack growth

Crack growth at elevated temperature has been examined in a new fine-grained nickel-based superalloy under triangular, fast-slow, slow-fast, dwell and sustained loading conditions at 650 and 725 degrees C. The effect of loading waveform seems to be minimal for base frequencies over 0.01 Hz with a mixture of time and cycle dependent crack growth observed for all but the fast-slow waveform, where the crack growth remained cycle-dependent and the crack growth rate mostly constant. For base frequencies less than 0.01 Hz, crack growth under dwell load clearly accelerated and the crack growth rates were comparable with those under sustained load. Creep contribution was found to be negligible while crack tip constraint may be relevant to the out-of-plane crack growth observed under predominantly sustained load conditions. (C) 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.