Assessment of thermo-mechanical fatigue behaviour of the polycrystalline nickel alloy RR1000 reveals a significant effect of phase angle on fatigue life. The current paper explores two scenarios: the first where the mechanical strain range is held constant and comparisons of the fatigue life are made for different phase angle tests; and secondly, the difference between the behaviour of In-phase (IP) and -180° Out-Of-Phase (OOP) tests over a variety of applied strain ranges. It is shown that different lifing approaches are currently required for the two scenarios, with a mean stress based approach being more applicable in the first case, whereas a Basquin-type model proves more applicable in the second. However, it is also demonstrated that the crack propagation phase should also be considered in these types of tests for high strain ranges and projects that future modelling approaches should attempt to unify mean stress, stress range and a crack propagation phase.
Keywords: crack propagation; modelling; nickel superalloys; thermo-mechanical fatigue.