Bai et al.

Low-carbon Materials
Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44242-023-00032-4
and Green Construction

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access

Low‑cycle fatigue testing and microstructure

of high strength‑ductility structural steel
materials
Yongtao Bai1*, Qingyu Gong1, Xuhong Zhou1, Nazim Babacan2 and Shaoyu Guan3

Abstract
The well-known tradeoff between strength and ductility is a key issue in the large-scale engineering application
of steel materials to resist fatigue due to earthquakes and other vibrational excitations. The steel production indus-
try provides a vast range of technologies to achieve the desired performances. Through experimental research,
it was found that FeCrNi-based high-ductility steel (HD-S) can demonstrate remarkable hysteresis behavior due
to extensive deformation capacity of strain-hardening until the ultimate fracture, compared to industrially manufac-
tured high-strength steel (HS-S) with the level of 1 GPa in yield strength. The balance between strength and ductil-
ity can be realized by slightly adding the percentage of Ni by 5% to achieve a ductile hysteresis behavior. Moreover,
the HD-S specimens exhibit greater resistance to low-cycle fatigue with large plastic amplitude. By developing a new
damage evolution law based on instantaneous damage differential during nonstationary fatigue history, the fatigue
life of materials is extended into the inelastic hinges of flexural beams/origami components. The proposed approach
enables the fatigue design of steel structural components with desirable disaster-prevention capacities for complex
steel structures.
Keywords Strength-ductility tradeoff, Low-carbon steels, High-performance steels, Low-cycle fatigue, Microstructure,
Lumped damage mechanics

摘要
强度和延性之间的权衡是钢结构材料在大规模工程应用中抵抗地震、疲劳及其它振动激励损伤的关键问
题。通过试验研究发现, 与屈服强度为1GPa级别工业生产的高强度钢(HS-S)相比, FeCrNi基高延性钢
(HD-S)由于其应变硬化直至最终断裂的广泛变形能力, 可以在疲劳过程中表现出显著的耗能特性。强度和
延性之间的平衡可以通过添加约5%的Ni来实现, 以获得延性伸长率和滞回性能。此外, HD-S试件能够更好
地抵抗大塑性常幅下的低周疲劳破坏。基于疲劳过程中的瞬时损伤驱动变量, 本文提出了一种新的损伤演
化定律, 将材料的疲劳寿命扩展到宏观弯曲梁、折纸构件的非弹性铰链中。本文提出的方法能够对具有理
想防灾消能能力的钢结构构件进行疲劳建模与分析, 以应用于钢结构极端建造中的疲劳设计。
关键词 强度与延性权衡, 低碳钢, 高性能钢, 低周疲劳, 微观结构, 集中损伤力学

*Correspondence:
Yongtao Bai
[email protected]
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

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Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 2 of 12

1 Introduction closing, to promote new metallic materials such as high-

Since the twenty-first century, the performance develop- strength steels with desirable damage tolerance [13].
ment of structural steel materials in civil engineering has The concept of damage mechanics describes the evolu-
primarily been focused on the increase of yielding and tion of mechanically induced micro-defects of materials.
ultimate strengths to achieve desired resistance against A hypothesis of equivalence establishes the constitu-
natural disasters, such as strong earthquakes and winds. tive relation between the strain and effective stress that
However, learned lessons from past catastrophic events depends on an additional state variable (ω) to quantify
such as the Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake (1995), Chi- the area of micro-defects (Ad) [14, 15]:
chi earthquake (1999) and the Wenchuan earthquake
P σ
(2008), tens of thousands of civilian fatalities, and bil- σ = = (1)
lions of direct economic losses are mainly caused by A − Ad 1−ω
the destruction of building structures [1–3] and life-line where σ is the conventional Cauchy stress, and σ̃ is the
infrastructure. effective stress, which highly depends on the develop-
Steel plays an important role in infrastructure and ment of the damage variable. In the equivalence hypoth-
overall economic development. Modern steel manufac- esis of damaged micro-materials, the total strain is
turers actively participate in the development of new decomposed into three terms: an elastic strain εe that
advanced steels by adjusting their composition or adopt- obeys the Hooke law, a plastic strain εp, and a damage
ing new processing procedures to meet the growing strain εd, which introduces an additional flexibility term
demand for high-performance materials [4]. As one of in the material. In other words, if the damage is equal
the most essential alloy metals in engineering structures, to zero, then there is no additional flexibility, otherwise,
steel with high strength (> 460 MPa) has been extensively the additional flexibility tends to infinity when the dam-
used in buildings, bridges, and offshore structures [5]. age becomes one. For the alloys with plasticity such as
High-strength steel is always in market demand for the steel materials, a yield function with kinematic harden-
special purpose use in the field of energy conservation, ing should be established using this strain equivalence
transportation and industrial infrastructure [6]. By using hypothesis. In addition to the uniaxial damage concept
high-strength steel, we can reduce the weight of struc- for solid materials such as steel under compressive or
tures and vehicles, thereby reducing energy consumption tensile forces, flexural damages exist in nature and man-
and greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to sus- made structures such as beams and frames [16, 17]. For
tainable development. instance, the behavior of origami structures is primarily
Due to the significant deformation ability of high duc- dominated by the flexural deformation capacity of folding
tility steel without fracture, it is crucial in seismic zones ceases subjected to bending moment [18].
and areas prone to natural disasters. This high-perfor- From the inspiration of the constitutive model in the
mance steel has excellent energy absorption capacity and framework of damage mechanics for micro-materials,
is an ideal material for manufacturing earthquake resist- this paper develops a new lumped damage concept for
ant structures. Materials are always expected to achieve macro-meta structures with generalized forces and
both high strength and high toughness. However, these deformations. More critically, the rotational joints in
two are often mutually exclusive [7]. Most metallurgical these flexural members should be able to absorb plastic
mechanisms for increasing strength would lead to ductil- energy and prevent brittle failure concerning fatigue and
ity loss and fatigue failure [8] due to the strength-ductil- extreme events that possibly occur in the service period.
ity tradeoff effect [7, 9]. Although high-strength Fe-based
metals with high ductility have been developed, strength 2 Experimental design
and stiffness will get loss inevitably as ductility increases 2.1 Specimen preparation
due to the uncertainty of the scaling effect between To develop the mechanical properties of the HS-S and
micromaterials and macroscale components for mature HD-S materials, a comprehensive test program was
production [10, 11]. Theoretically, damage and fracture designed. For the design of specimen configuration and
mechanics provides solutions to predict fatigue life based testing setup, we mainly cited the fatigue testing provi-
on micro defects and materials fracture energy, Nguyen sions in ISO 12106: 2003 code. The ductility and tensile
et al. [12] develop a new perspective of fracture mechan- strength were assessed through the tensile tests at room
ics inspired by a modified experiment with crack-parallel temperature. The fatigue resistance was assessed based
compression and bending. The above approach reveals on the fatigue tests, in which the controlled strain ampli-
the importance of developing damage and fracture tudes vary from 0.9% to 1.5%.
mechanics for evaluating the full range of fatigue failure The materials studied in this paper are two types of
including crack initiation, propagation, opening, and high-performance steels HS-S and HD-S, provided by
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 3 of 12

Baosteel (Shanghai, China) and Yongtai Metal Materials remaining one round bar was used to execute the influ-
(Dongguan, China) respectively. The chemical composi- ence of cyclic cycles for the HD-S. The specimens for
tion of the alloys is given in Table 1. The FeCrNi-based fatigue tests are 130.87 mm long and the dimensions are
high-ductility steel used in this study is composed of (by shown in Fig. 2. There are 4 round bars for the HD-S and
weight) 8.94% carbon, 6.71% nickel, 16.86% chromium 6 round bars for the steel HS-S to carry out traditional
and balanced iron, which is developed to achieve larger fatigue tests under different controlled strain amplitudes
ductility. And the high-strength steel is a type of indus- respectively. Besides, there are two additional round bars
trially manufactured high-strength steel for engineering for both materials used to study the rain flow effect.
structures (Q960). Tables 2 and 3 show the measured dimensions of the
A total of five round bars were manufactured for ten- steel HS-S and HD-S, respectively. The specimen labels,
sile tests. Figure 1 shows the dimensions of the tensile as shown in Tables 2 and 3, are designed in a way that
specimens. For each kind of material, two round bars the specimens with different critical information could
were used to study the tensile property under cyclic ten- be identified easily. In the labeling, the first letter Tension
sion stress and cyclic tension–compression stress. The or Fatigue refers to the tensile test or fatigue test, respec-
tively. The following notations can be used to distinguish
the materials. The last notations indicate the controlled
strain amplitude in the fatigue test which is expressed as
Table 1 Chemical composition of various steels in the a multiple of the yield strain. As for tensile tests, the last
percentage of weight notation stress and strain present two different unloading
Chemical composition Percentage of weight (%) controls that are stress unloaded to zero stress and strain
unloaded to zero strain. It should be noted that all the
HS-S HD-S
tests are conducted at room temperature.
Fe 67 67.49
C 2 8.94 2.2 Test example application
Si 2 0 The tensile tests and fatigue tests were performed
Mn 2 0 by a 250kN electro-hydraulic servo universal testing
P 3 0 machine. The strain-controlling mode is adopted during
S 3 0 all the tests. When the strain amplitude of each cycle is
Cu 2 0 unloaded to zero strain, the stress of the specimen will
Ni 2 6.71 transfer from tension to compression. In order to avoid
Cr 2 16.86 buckling failure caused by out of plane deformation, the
Nb 3 0 unloading rate was determined as a pure static protocol
V 3 0 with a strain rate of 0.1%/s. The unloading strain rate is
Ti 3 0 the minimum value of the actuator capacity. The gauge
Mo 2 0 length of the extensometer is 20 mm for the tensile speci-
B 4 0 men and 10 mm for the fatigue specimen. To measure the

Fig. 1 Tensile specimen: a dimensions of the specimen; b picture of the specimen

Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 4 of 12

Fig. 2 Fatigue specimen: a dimensions of the specimen; b picture of the specimen

Table 2 Measured dimensions of tensile specimens

Specimen Holding section Test section
L1 (mm) D1 (mm) L2 (mm) D2 (mm) L0 (mm) D0 (mm)

T-HS-S-1 50.300 11.925 49.800 11.924 50.195 6.016

50.210 11.927 50.030 11.927 49.900 6.029
T-HS-S-2 50.085 11.926 50.010 11.924 50.215 6.004
T-HD-S-1 49.475 12.008 49.815 12.000 50.370 5.991
T-HD-S-2 49.675 11.994 49.885 11.989 50.290 5.994

Table 3 Measured dimensions of fatigue specimens

Specimen Holding section Test section
L1 (mm) D1 (mm) L2 (mm) D2 (mm) L0 (mm) D0 (mm)

F-HD-S-1.24εy 50.140 11.928 50.130 11.927 29.185 5.998

F-HD-S-1.44εy 50.190 11.926 50.105 11.929 29.200 5.996
F-HD-S-1.73εy 50.110 11.929 50.150 11.927 29.235 5.996
F-HD-S-1.98εy 50.170 11.928 50.075 11.929 29.615 5.995
F-HD-S-1.24εy + 1.73εy 50.160 11.929 50.030 11.926 29.365 5.999
F-HD-S-1.73εy + 1.24εy 50.370 11.924 50.095 11.923 29.035 5.998
F-HS-S-0.86εy 50.190 12.085 49.385 12.047 29.790 5.989
F-HS-S-1.04εy 49.810 11.998 49.805 12.006 29.280 5.983
F-HS-S-1.08εy 49.845 12.021 49.815 12.014 29.385 5.975
F-HS-S-1.15εy 50.000 11.999 49.705 12.004 29.580 5.968
F-HS-S-1.29εy 50.370 12.092 50.005 12.066 28.820 5.985
F-HS-S-1.90ey 49.580 11.989 49.485 12.007 29.735 5.962
F-HS-S-1.08εy + 1.29εy 49.640 12.081 49.900 12.063 29.255 5.986
F-HS-S-1.29εy + 1.08εy 50.175 11.976 49.910 11.965 29.170 5.981
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 5 of 12

local strain, two additional strain gauges are placed in the affecting fatigue life based on the rain flow rule. Alternat-
middle of the specimen longitudinally and horizontally ing strain amplitudes are employed that are first apply-
shown in Fig. 3. ing half-cycles under 1.24εy and then applying a bigger
For the tensile tests, three types of cyclic loading stain amplitude of 1.73εy until fracture for the HD-S. The
schemes are used. Table 4 describes the specified load- test is done again applying the bigger stain amplitude of
ing scheme for cyclic tensile specimens. It can be seen 1.73εy at the beginning. As for the HS-S structural steel,
that the two different unloading patterns are compared the strain amplitude of 1.24εy and 1.73εy are replaced by
for both materials. Specimens under unloading control 1.08εy and 1.29εy. The frequency for fatigue test is 0.05 Hz
of zero stress experience more strain amplitudes (0.5%, and failure is defined when one of the following happens:
1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, 12%, 16%, and 20%) com- the specimen is completely fractured; the large tensile
pared with fewer strain amplitudes for specimens under stress changes by 25% relative to the level determined by
unloading control of zero strain (0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%, and the test; the ratio of the elastic modulus of tension to the
4%) to avoid bulking. The strain rate is 0.1%/s and the modulus of compression is changed. Normally, Et/Ec = 0.
failure is defined when the specimen was completely 5 is assessed as a failure; the maximum tensile stress var-
fractured. The extensometer can be damaged when the ies by 25% relative to the maximum compressive stress.
specified range is exceeded. Therefore, displacement con-
trol is adopted when the strain is greater than 20%. 3 Results and discussion
The low-cycle fatigue characters are studied in this 3.1 Strength and ductility
paper, which limits the fatigue life to 1000 cycles. There- Monotonic and cyclic stress–strain properties of the
fore four different strain amplitudes (1.24εy, 1.22εy, 1.73εy, high-strength steel (HS-S) are compared with that of
and 1.98εy) are employed for fatigue tests of high-strength the high-ductility steel (HD-S), as shown in Fig. 4. The
carbon Ni steel, and six strain amplitudes (0.86εy, 1.04εy, steel HS-S behaved significantly higher yielding stress
1.08εy, 1.15εy, 1.29εy, and 1.9εy) are adopted for HS-S 1.011 GPa at the associated strain of 0.72%, comparative
steel and all the strain amplitudes are greater than the to 0.633 GPa for the HD-S. During the loading process,
yield strain εy of each material. Furthermore, a supple- Young’s modulus is estimated approximately was 200 GPa
mentary test is designed to employ the dominating factor by considering σy,0.1% as the end of linear elasticity. The
maximum strength of HS-S material reaches 1.067 GPa
with only elongated to 4% strain. In contrast, the associ-
ated stress at 4% strain of the HD-S as shown in Fig. 4 (a),
is 7.93 GPa which remains to harden to 861 MPa until the
strain reaches 42%. Compared with the hardening stress
of the HS-S, a fourfold increase of elongation under ulti-
mate strength is more remarkable for the HD-S. Addi-
tionally, the Bauschinger effect was found to play various
roles in both materials, which demonstrates the modu-
lus degradation during unloading that is 132 GPa for the
HS-S and 100 GPa for the HD-S, respectively.
The hysteresis curves in Fig. 4 (b) indicate another
unloading protocol to zero strain in each cycle. Dur-
ing the test, compressive stress is applied to recover the
residual strain. Thus, the bulking is inevitable for the
Fig. 3 Test setup and extensometer placement
tensile specimens with a large slenderness ratio and the

Table 4 Loading scheme for cyclic tensile specimens

No Strain amplitudes Unloading control Cyclic cycles per Specimen number
amplitude

a 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, Stress = 0 3 Tension- steel HD-S-stress(3)
12%, 16%, 20% Tension-steel HS-S-stress(3)
b 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, Stress = 0 1 Tension-steel HD-S-stress(1)
12%, 16%, 20%
c 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% Strain = 0 1 Tension-HD-S-strain
Tension-HS-S-strain
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 6 of 12

Fig. 4 Monotonic and hysteretic behavior of two types of steel materials: a Monotonic engineering stress–strain curve for both specimens (b) The
hysteretic response of stress and strain relation curves

bulking is observed while loading to 4% strain. The ulti- standardized strain amplitude that refers to the ratio
mate stress of the HS-S in the failure cycle is 1031 MPa of strain amplitude to yield strain is accepted here to
reduced 36 MPa compared with the cyclic tensile test, compare the material fatigue performance. The low-
whilst the comparative value for the HD-S is 711 MPa at cycle fatigue lives of both materials present high sensi-
4% strain. Besides, the degradation of modulus is more tivity to controlled strain amplitude that increases with
significant, which decreases by 40% from 200 to 119 GPa. the decrease of strain levels. The higher ductility of the
It should be noted that the behavior during unloading HD-S displays better performance of fatigue resistance.
deviates from Hook’s law since the stress–strain curve Besides, the fitted regression equation can be deter-
during unloading does not follow a linear course. This mined as shown in Fig. 5 (c). Calculate the root mean
curved progression indicates the so-called pseudo-elastic square error(RMSE) of the fatigue life of HD-S and
effect. HS-S respectively by using Eq. 2, the calculated results
are ­RHD-S = 0.054% and ­RHS-S = 0.045%.
n
3.2 Failure mechanism to low‑cycle fatigue 1 2
Figure 5 (a) shows the hysteretic stress–strain curves of
RMSE = φi − φi (2)
n
i=1
the HD-S and the HS-S respectively, in which the evolu-
tion of stress–strain responses versus fatigue life can be For all the specimens, the life cycles decrease along
compared. The ultimate stresses for the fatigue test bring with the logarithmic relation with the increase of strain
in correspondence with that of the cyclic tensile skeleton amplitude. Contrarily, the dissipated energy per unit
curve, which is 953 MPa of the HS-S and 647 MPa of the mass is closely related to the strain amplitude, rising
HD-S. The plastic flow is inevitable as the accumulation with the increase of strain amplitude. Therefore, the
of plastic strain. However, the strength degradation of the different accumulation ratio of dissipated energy is easy
HD-S is not significantly contrasting with the HS-S. The to understand in the accumulated energy curves where
failure can be identified as the strength reduction reaches the slopes represent the dissipated energy per unit
25% to the level determined by the fatigue test based on mass under different strain amplitudes. When it comes
the specification (ISO 12106: 2003), there will be a dis- to fracture, the arresting descent for dissipated energy
tinct shrink for the fatigue life of the HS-S from 371 to can be seen for both materials although the distinct
332 cycles, dropped by 11% while the degradation ratio is decrease modes are a longer-lasting degradation for the
1% for the HD-S. Furthermore, the unilateral asymmetric steel HS-S. Thus, significantly different fracture pat-
phenomenon is discovered for HD-S material when the terns are formed shown in Fig. 5 (a). The HS-S fractures
crack propagates in tension, which indicates a significant along the direction of maximum shear stress while the
effect due to crack closure. HD-S cracks along with the maximum normal stress,
The dissipated energy per unit mass and accumu- therefore, developing two types of fracture. It is further
lated energy during the whole fatigue life are displayed noted that the fracture of the HS-S is much rougher
in Fig. 5 (b). Figure 5 (c) shows the data of fatigue lives and is prone to generate multiple cracks compared with
of the two different high-performance steel materi- the HD-S.
als under different standardized strain amplitude. A
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 7 of 12

Fig. 5 Comparisons of behavior to failure under low cycle fatigue. a Hysteresis behavior during LCF history. b Hysteretic energy accumulation
of plasticity. c S–N relation for fatigue life

3.3 Fractography compared to HS-S, HD-S has smaller and more evenly

To investigate the ductility properties of the two materi- distributed micro-voids. The HD-S exhibits better ductil-
als, the measurement of elongation and scanning elec- ity than the HS-S and the elongation reaches up to 42%,
tron microscope of fracture are employed, as shown in three times the HS-S. The residual fracture surface is
Figs. 6 and 7. From Fig. 6, it can be seen that the crack characterized by ductile deformation features (dimples),
propagation zone of HD-S is larger than that of HS-S, which this property can be estimated by the intensity
and HS-S has obvious brittle crack traces. In addition, and size of dimples. Therefore, the large size and uniform
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 8 of 12

Fig. 6 SEM fractography of (a,c) HD-S and (b,d) HS-S steels under ultra-low cyclic tensile loading (3 cyclic per amplitude – unloading to zero stress),
and (e) EDX mapping of the chemical composite around dimple area of HS-S steel

arrangement of dimples in the HD-S indicates more duc- The fracture morphology of low-cycle fatigue speci-
tile performance than the HS-S with the same amplified mens is presented in Fig. 7. While the left side of the
factor. figure belongs to the fracture surfaces of the HD-S speci-
The fractography surfaces from cyclic tensile loading men under 1.98εy strain amplitude which corresponds to
tests was examined macroscopically and microscopi- about 1.09% strain, the right side depicts the HS-S steel
cally to compare the fracture surfaces of two high-perfor- specimen tested under 1.29εy strain amplitude that cor-
mance steel plates. Macroscopic images of both samples responds to 0.93% strain. These two specimens were cho-
are seen in Fig. 6(a) and (b) consist of fibrous and shear- sen for fractography investigations since they were tested
lip zones, while the HS-S sample has radial marks shown under close strain values. Compared with Fig. 7(a), the
with the red arrows additionally (Fig. 6(b)). These pat- crack growth region of the HS-S sample is much rougher,
terns are indications of rapid and unstable crack propa- as shown in Fig. 7(b), which can be the result of possess-
gation and are perpendicular to the crack front [19]. ing a higher crack growth rate. Stage II crack propagation
Higher magnification SEM fractography in Fig. 6(c) and is trans-granular for both samples and the crack propa-
(d) reveals that the specimens fractured in a ductile man- gation regions seen in Fig. 7(c, d) are characterized by
ner as the surfaces are predominately composed of large predominantly quasi-cleavage fractures with some sec-
voids and dimples. It is known that particle size and spac- ondary cracks (highlighted by red arrows). The density of
ing have an important role in the variation of dimple size secondary cracks in the HD-S specimen is higher com-
among the fracture surfaces. Nevertheless, the HD-S pared to that of the HS-S specimen which can be another
consists of larger dimples compared to HS-S steel in gen- factor for deceleration of crack growth in the HD-S
eral, pointing out that the former displays better ductile specimen due to the energy-consuming capacity of sec-
performance under the same loading conditions. ondary cracks. Besides, micro-voids are only detected in
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 9 of 12

Fig. 7 SEM fractography of low cycle fatigue (a,c,e) HD-S specimen tested under 1.98εy strain amplitude and (b,d,f) HS-S specimen tested
under 1.29εy strain amplitude. a,b Overall fatigue fracture surfaces, c,d crack propagation regions, e,f final rupture areas

the HD-S specimens as shown with blue arrows. Fatigue  β

�εp
striations were not observed on the fracture surfaces that N= (3)
εf
can be seen under special cases in high-strength steels
[20]. The characteristics of final rupture areas under low where Δεp is the plastic strain amplitude, and εf and β are
cycle fatigue shown in Fig. 7(e, f ) are similar to those of material parameters. In particular, εf indicates the plastic
under cyclic loading. HD-S specimen consists of larger strain amplitude that induces the fracture of the speci-
and deeper dimples compared to HS-S specimen as an men in one cycle.
indication of more ductile fracture. Moreover, Fig. 7(f ) When the origami with plastic hinge is subjected to
indicates that the failure criterion seems sensitive to repeatedly LCF loading protocol, using high-perfor-
material flaws on the microscopic scale. mance steel materials tends to create material and geo-
metric nonlinearity. The crease rotation of origami then
4 Damage evolution law for fatigue crack consists of three general deformations, which are con-
propagation trolled by elasticity εe = [F(d)]·{σ}, plasticity εp, and LCF-
The well-known Manson-Coffin law for low-cycle fatigue induced damage variable εd [2, 3].
(LCF) establishes the exponential relation between the Based on the conceptual idea of the lumped damage
reversal number of cycles to fracture in a uni-axial test mechanics, all plastic deformation is concentrated in
with constant plastic strain amplitude as follows [21]:
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 10 of 12

the plastic hinge region. The plastic strain amplitude Denote the plastic amplitudes of two tests as �φ ap and
of fiber at a distance z from the neutral axis can be �φ bp . Let Na and Nb be the corresponding numbers of
replaced by the rotation shown in Eq. (3), where Lp is cycles for failure. Then, based on Eq. (8):
the plastic hinge length. Therefore, the Manson-Coffin  β
law can be represented by the generalized deformation a ∼
(1 − d i )a �φpa
of structural components without damage as shown in N = (10)
φ
Eq. (4), in which φ = 2Lpεf/H is the generalized defor-
mation corresponding to flexural force. The parameter β can be computed by taking the log-
arithm of Eq. (9). Then, Eq. (10) gives the determina-
�φ p
�ε p (z) ∼
=z (4) tion method of the parameter β, in which the values of
Lp the parameter (Na, Nb, Δpa, and Δpb) can be obtained
from the regression curve shown in Fig. 5(c). Here, the
 β  β parameter βHD-S is -3.07, and βHS-S is -3.45.
H�φ p �φ p
N∼
= = (5)    
2Lp εf φ �φ bp
Nb
β = ln / ln (11)
The damage factor can be introduced to the equa- Na �φ ap
tion based on the intermediate quantity of the second
moment of area I. The second moment of the area after The parameter α is the section shape coefficient that
crack ( I ) has a close relationship with the damage fac- can be determined by the second moment of area, for
tor shown in Eq. (5). Meanwhile, the loss of modulus the circular section of this test, to be estimated as 0.4.
after cracking can be estimated by the ratio of effective Thus, the cycles of crack initiation Ncr can be calculated
height of section in Eq. (6). By eliminating the second while taking the value of zero for damage in Eq. (11).
moment of area in the Eqs. (5) and (6), the relationship Besides, the damage evolution rule can be derived from
of damage factor d and the distance z is established the inverse of Eq. (8). Only up to the initiation cycles,
shown in Eq. (7). Therefore, a new Manson-Coffin law there will be damage accumulation, and before that
in combination with damage can be derived in Eq. (8). damage is considered to be zero.
 β  β
I (1 − d i )α �φ p �φ p
= 1 − di (6) Ncr = = (12 )
I φ φ

I ∼ z3
= (7)
I (H/2)3 di = 0 if N < Ncr

H
z∼
= (1 − d1 )α (8)   
p

β ln φcr /�φ i +ln (N )

2 di (N ) = Max 1 − exp if N > Ncr (13)
βα

 β
(1 − d i )α �φ p where di indicates the damage variable in the phase of
N∼
= (9)
φ crack propagation, and φcr is the critical rotation corre-
sponding to LCF-induced crack initiation. Figure 8 com-
where Δφp and φ bring into correspondence with Δεp and pares the differences between crack initiation and failure
εf, which can be calculated by Eq. (3) and Eq. (4). Δφp is as well as the damage evolution during the two stages.
the plastic rotation of fiber layers at a distance z and the The fatigue life corresponding to the initial crack is not
parameter φ is the amplitude of the plastic rotation that linearly distributed as the failure cycles. With the trans-
produces the fracture of the specimen in one cycle. The formation from low cycle fatigue to high cycle fatigue,
plastic hinge length can be estimated at 0.5H based on the crack initiation cycles are close to the cycles of failure
Eurocode 8. For the initial specimen without damage, the illustrating a sudden and rapid brittle fracture. Besides,
distance z is equal to the half-height of the Sect. (0.5H). the damage evolution curve shows damage develops rap-
Thus, the Δφp can be considered equal to the Δεp based idly in the early stage and materials with better tough-
on Eq. (3). And the parameter of rotation φ can be deter- ness can withstand greater internal damage for HD-S
mined by the regression equation to be 0.023 for φHD-S materials.
and 0.028 for φHS-S when the failure of life is one cycle.
Bai et al. Low-carbon Materials and Green Construction (2024) 2:1 Page 11 of 12

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available
from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations
Competing interests
All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any
organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the
subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Author details
1
School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China.
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sivas University of Science and Tech-
nology, Sivas 58140, Turkey. 3 Department of Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong
University, Xi’an 710049, China.

Received: 11 July 2023 Revised: 3 October 2023 Accepted: 9 October

Fig. 8 Fatigue life and fracture toughness during crack propagation 2023

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