Ultrasonic fatigue tests up to 1010 cycles were performed on a turbine engine titanium alloy (Ti-8Al-1Mo-1V) at the stress ratio (R) of -1 with smooth specimens and at R = -1, 0.1 and 0.5 with notched specimens. As a result, with increase of fatigue life, the source of reduced fatigue life caused by multi-point surface crack initiation changes from crack propagation stage to crack initiation stage in the high cycle fatigue regime. Notch effect further promotes the degeneration of high cycle and very high cycle fatigue strength at R > -1. The bilinear model, extended from the Goodman method, can better estimate the mean stress sensitivity of this titanium alloy. The fatigue mean stress sensitivity and fatigue-creep mean stress sensitivity of this material increased with the increase of fatigue life. The new model, based on the Murakami model, can provide more appropriate predictions for notch fatigue strength.
Keywords: VHCF; fatigue strength prediction; mean stress; multi-point surface crack initiation; notch.