Crack initiation and short crack propagation was studied on the polished notched surfaces of Cr-Mo prealloy sintered steels with 7.35 sintered density. An ultrasonic resonance test system operating in push-pull mode at 20 kHz and R=-1 was used. It showed that crack initiation took place in several places, small cracks growing oriented to the local pore structure rather than to stress orientation. Their growth rate is markedly higher than the corresponding one of long cracks. Finally, several microcracks join to form a dominant crack.

• Xu
• Chen
• Danninger
• Herbert
• Khatibi
• Golta
• Weiss
• Brigitte