Fatigue Properties of Austenitic Stainless Steel with Circumferential Notch

The effect of stress concentration factor on the fatigue properties of typical austenitic stainless steel SUS304 have been investigated using the circumferentially notched specimens. The notch of specimens has six kinds of radii, i.e. ρ = ∞ (i.e. plain specimen), 2.0, 1.0, 0.6, 0.3, and 0.1 mm with constant notch depth (t=0.2mm). Though the fatigue cracks in the specimens with a blunt notch initiate at one point, those in the specimens with a sharp notch initiate at several points. There exist the slip bands in the surface of the specimen under the stress amplitude of fatigue limit by 1×107 cycles, and do not exist the non-propagating micro-cracks in all kinds of the specimens. Furthermore, it has been found that notch sensitivity of austenitic stainless steels is higher than that of a typical plain carbon steels under the higher stress concentration factor region.