Low-cycle fatigue tests of SUS316NG were conducted under conditions of strain range Δε=2, 4 and 8%. During the fatigue tests, changes in surface relief of specimen were measured by a laser scanning microscope. The surface roughening due to slip bands and deformation of grains was quantitatively evaluated by using arithmetic average roughness R_a and arithmetic average waviness W_a respectively. As a result, R_a and W_a increased with the increase of UF (Usage Factor), and the increasing rates of R_a and W_a with respect to UF became larger in larger strain ranges. The ratio of increasing rate of W_a to R_a also became larger in larger strain ranges. This result indicates that the surface roughening due to deformation of grains is caused more significantly than that due to slip bands is in larger strain ranges. Based on the different tendencies of R_a and W_a, we suggested a new damage evaluation method which can estimate UF and applied strain range of fatigued material.
