Enhancing Fatigue Properties of Nanostructured Metals and Alloys

Abstract

Recent research on the fatigue properties of nanostructured metals and alloys has shown that they generally possess superior high cycle fatigue performance due largely to improved resistance to crack initiation. However, this advantage is not consistent for all nanostructured metals, nor does it extend to low cycle fatigue. Since nanostructures are designed and controlled at the approximately the same size scale as the defects that influence crack initiation attention to preexisting nanoscale defects is critical for enhancing fatigue life. This paper builds on the state of knowledge of fatigue in nanostructured metals and proposes an approach to understand and improve fatigue life using existing experimental and computational methods for nanostructure design.