Abstract
In order to reduce the weight of the suspension springs by increasing the steel strength, it is necessary to improve the corrosion fatigue property. However, the dominant factor governing the corrosion fatigue property of the suspension spring has not been satisfactorily revealed yet. Therefore, the investigation into elucidating the mechanism has been carried out to independently evaluate the influences of corrosion pits, shot peening, hydrogen, prior-austenite grain size, and so forth on the corrosion fatigue property. In this study, the influence of hydrogen on rotary bending fatigue test was investigated using specimens with artificial corrosion pits after shot peening. The dominant factors governing the corrosion fatigue property of the suspension spring were discussed based on the result of the present study in conjunction with the results of the previous study on the influences of shot peening and corrosion pit depth. The conclusions obtained were as follows:
(1) In the case of the specimen without corrosion pit or with only shallow corrosion pits having still large compressive residual stress at the bottom of the pits, the fatigue property was fairly good but declined with the increment of charged hydrogen due to the diffusible hydrogen. On the other hand, in the case of the specimen with deep corrosion pits having only small compressive residual stress, the fatigue property was poor regardless of the charged hydrogen content. We inferred from this result that the deep corrosion pit releases the compressive residual stress at the bottom of pits.
(2) The effect of prior-austenite grain size on fatigue properties of hydrogen charged specimens turned out to be almost negligible.
