Issue 30

G. Meneghetti et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 30 (2014) 191-200; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.30.25 194 Alternatively, the thermoelastic temperature T the can be easily calculated from Eq. 4, which relates T the to the maximum applied stress [20]: max max 0 the m T K T c                  (4) where T 0 is the material temperature when the applied stress is equal to zero and  the material thermal expansion coefficient. Therefore the new equation proposed in the present paper to rationalise the mean stress influence on axial fatigue of stainless steel plain specimens is:   f 0 N cost m h m the f T Q N Q T                    (5) where h and m are material constants to evaluate by fitting the experimental data. M ATERIAL , SPECIMENS ’ GEOMETRY AND TEST PROCEDURE he material selected for the experimental tests consisted of 25-mm-diameter AISI 304 L cold drawn bars, having a engineering tensile strength, R m , and an engineering proof stress, R p02 , equal to 691 MPa and 468 MPa, respectively. The material adopted in this work is different from that analysed in [10], characterised by R m =700 MPa and R p02 = 315 MPa. As to the material analysed in the present paper, the mechanical properties, the chemical composition, the Vickers hardness and the average grain size are listed in Tab. 1 [11]. E [MPa] R p02 [MPa] R m [MPa] A [%] HV 30 C [%] Si [%] Mn [%] Cr [%] Mo [%] Ni [%] Cu [%] Average grain size* [  m] 192200 468 691 43 199 0.013 0.58 1.81 18.00 0.44 8.00 0.55 35 Table 1 : AISI 304 L material properties (*According to ASTM E 112 [21]). Constant amplitude, stress-controlled fatigue tests were carried out on a servo-hydraulic MFL machines equipped with a 250 kN load cell and a MTS Testar IIm digital controller. Three different load ratios R (R=-1, R=0.1 and R=0.5) were adopted. In the case of load ratio equal to R=-1 and R=0.1, the specimens’ geometry is shown in Fig. 3a, whereas that adopted for R=0.5 is reported in Fig. 3b. The load test frequency was selected in the range 1-30 Hz and as high as possible in order to maintain the stabilised temperature of the material below 70°C during the whole fatigue test. Then the fatigue test was suddenly stopped to measure the cooling gradient and to evaluate the Q parameter, according to the experimental procedure proposed in [8]. The fatigue tests were run until the specimen’s failure or to 2 million cycles (run- out specimen). 230 130 50 50 Ø25 R425 Ø15 (a) 230 130 50 50 Ø25 R285 Ø10 (b) Figure 3 : Specimens’ geometry adopted for fatigue tests having a) load ratio R=-1 e R=0.1 and b) R=0.5. To evaluate the thermoelastic material constant K m , Eq. (4), load controlled ramps were executed at different load rates by means of a servo-hydraulic Schenck Hydropuls PSA 100 machine equipped with a 100 kN load cell and a Trio Sistemi RT3 digital controller. During all tests, the specimen’s temperature was measured by using a copper-constantan thermocouple having diameter of 0.127 mm, which was fixed at the specimen’s centre by means of a silver-loaded conductive epoxy glue. Temperature T