Effect of micro-notches on fatigue strength of electrodeposited nanocrystalline nickel thin films

Abstract

The effect of micro-notches on the fatigue strength of nickel thin films was studied. Two types of thin films with 10 μm thickness were produced by electrodeposition using sulfamate solution without and with brightener: ultra-fine grained film (UFG) with the grain size of 384 nm and nano-crystalline grained film (NCG) with that of 17 nm. Micro-sized notches introduced by FIB had the width of 2 μm and various depths from 8 to 150μm. Fatigue tests were conducted under the stress ratio of 0.1. The fatigue strength decreased with increasing depth of notches. NCG had much higher strength than UFG compared at the same notch depth. Notches as small as 8μm did reduce the fatigue strength of both UFG and NCG. The fatigue limit was controlled by the initiation of cracks and no non-propagating crack was observed in specimens fatigued below the fatigue limit. A model of fictitious crack successfully predicted the reduction of the fatigue limit due to micro-notches. The characteristic crack length of NCG was much smaller than the UFG, while the fatigue strength of defect-free NCG was larger than that of UFG. SEM observation of fracture surfaces was conducted to reveal micromechanisms of fatigue crack initiation.