The fatigue and ultimate tensile strengths of metals between 4⋅2 and 293° K

Abstract

The fatigue of copper, silver, gold, aluminium, magnesium, zinc and iron has been investigated at 4⋅2, 20, 90 and 293° K. Except for zinc and iron, which exhibit brittle fracture at low temperatures, the fatigue characteristics improve very considerably as the temperature is reduced. The ultimate tensile strength of all the metals was also taken at each temperature and there was shown to be a marked correlation between the increase in the tensile strength at low temperatures and the increase in the fatigue strength. The results are discussed with reference to current ideas on the mechanism of fatigue.