Experimental study of the strengthening effect of low amplitude loading history for a P/M nickel-based superalloy FGH96

The influence of preloading on the residual fatigue life of nickel-based superalloys under elevated temperatures was investigated experimentally. A powder metallurgy nickel-based superalloy FGH96 was preloaded with different number of cycles, and the residual fatigue life was tested under subsequent high-amplitude loads. The test results show that the fatigue life of the material was increased when the preloading cycle number within a specific range. At the same time, the fatigue life of virgin specimens under high-amplitude loads shows little scatter, which provides the possibility to consider the strengthening effect of low-amplitude loads. A novel damage accumulation model was proposed to incorporate the strengthening effect of low-amplitude loads into the life prediction framework. The proposed model provides better life prediction than some existing models. Finally, the proposed model was validated using experimental data for various materials under the low-high loading sequence.