Abstract: Near-threshold fatigue crack growth tests are conducted at various stress ratios and different pre-cracking locations of a 25Cr2Ni2MoV welded joint by using load-shedding procedure at room temperature to investigate the transition behavior of fatigue crack growth curve. Results show that there exists a transition point in the fatigue crack growth curve in the near-threshold regime, and the stress intensity range at the transition point which is 0.5 to 0.8 times of the fatigue threshold decreases with the increasing of stress ratio. The different slope values of the fatigue crack growth curve before and after the transition point indicates the change of crack propagation mechanisms. The transition behavior with pre-cracks in the heat-affected zone shows slight influence on the fatigue crack growth behavior. The cyclic plastic zone size at the transition point is found close to the characteristic microstructure size when load ratio is below 0.5. It is indicated that the transition of crack growth driving force from stress intensity range K to maximum stress intensity Kmax is responsible for the load ratio influence on the transition point.

Key words: fatigue crack growth, stress ratio, transition point, welded joint