Fatigue and fracture paths in cold drawn pearlitic steel

This paper analyses the influence of microstructural anisotropy of a progressively drawn pearlitic steel (orientation of pearlitic lamellae in the drawing direction) on the microscopic and macroscopic evolution of cracking paths produced by fatigue and fracture. The fatigue crack path is always contained in the transverse section of the wires, i.e., the subcritical propagation develops under a global mode I, so that the main crack path is associated with mode I and some very local deflections take place to produce a roughness in the fatigue crack path depending on the drawing level. The fracture crack path evolves from a global mode I propagation following the transverse plane in slightly drawn steels (including the hot rolled bar that is not cold drawn at all) to a global mixed-mode propagation associated with crack deflection in intermediate and heavily drawn steels (the latter with a strong mode II component), the deviation angle being an increasing function of the drawing degree in the steel.