The investigation of low-cycle fatigue crack propagation of 16 Mn eccentric bar based on the acoustic emission technique

Abstract

Compared to the traditional cropping technology, low-cycle fatigue cropping can reduce load and improve cross-section quality. Geometric factors of V-shaped notch and processing parameters (such as load amplitude and load frequency) influence the cropping efficiency and section quality. By changing the factors, the sufficient efficiency of cropping and quality of cross-section get together. However, the influences of material defects, geometric parameters, loading frequency and other factors are different in each stage of the whole cropping process. If the effects of the parameters on the each stage of cropping process are clear, the higher productivity and the better cross-section quality will be obtained by applying suitable parameter on each stage of cropping process. To investigate the effects of eccentric ratio on each stage of low –cycle fatigue cropping process, a suitable monitoring method is needed. This study proposes acoustic emission (AE) technique to detect the low-cycle fatigue cropping process of 16 Mn eccentric bar (The bar prefabricated eccentric notches. The prefabricated notch improve the efficiency of cropping). The parameters of signals such as counts and kurtosis during the low–cycle fatigue process are obtained. According to the counts changes over time, the process of the 16 Mn metal bar cropping can be divided into three stages: the crack initiation stage, the crack propagation stage, and the fracture stage. Based on the cumulative counts, the eccentric ratio’s influence on the time of each cropping process stage is obtained. The time of the crack initiation stage and the final fracture stage doesn’t increase with the eccentric ratio. The time of the propagation stage influenced by the eccentric ratio greatly. Besides, the eccentric ratio’s influence on the cross-section quality is studied by using an advanced optical microscope system. The cross-section quality was influenced by the eccentric ratio significantly. The results of the paper indicate the acoustic emission (AE) monitoring technique is a useful method to detect the process of low-cycle fatigue cropping. Especially, it provide effective information to investigate the effects of the notch eccentric ratio during the low-cycle fatigue cropping process. The eccentric ratio’s effects on each stage of low-cycle fatigue cropping process offer guidance to improve low-stress fatigue cropping efficiency and cross-section quality.