Stable and Unstable Crack Growth in Chromium Pre-alloyed Steel

Sintered steels are materials characterized by residual porosity, whose dimension and morphology strongly affect the fatigue crack growth behaviour of the material. Prismatic specimens were pressed at $7.0\;g/cm^3$ from Astaloy CrM powder and sintered varying the sintering temperature and the cooling rate. Optical observations allowed to evaluate the dimensions and the morphology of the porosity and the microstructural characteristics. Fatigue tests were performed to investigate the threshold zone and to calculate the Paris law. Moreover $K_{Ic}$ tests were performed to complete the investigation. Both on fatigue and $K_{Ic}$ samples a fractographic analysis was carried out to investigate the crack path and the fracture surface features. The results show that the Paris law crack growth exponent is around 6.0 for $1120^{\circ}C$ sintered and around 4.7 for $1250^{\circ}C$ sintered materials. The same dependence to process parameters is not found for $K_{Ith}$.