Abstract
The bending fatigue tests were performed using the small sized specimens of AZ31 magnesium alloy fabricated by the focused ion beam (FIB) processing to investigate the scale effect on the fatigue behavior. For the fatigue test of the small sized specimens, the fatigue testing apparatus was constructed using the piezo actuator and the high-resolution microscope to control very small displacement. The shape of the small sized specimen was micropillar with the rectangular cross section of 3μm x 8μm and the height of 40gm. The fatigue tests of micropillar specimens were successfully conducted, and the fatigue strengths of the micropillar specimens were higher than those of the bulk sized specimens. The fracture surfaces of the micropillar specimens were rather flat without striations compared with those of the bulk specimen.
