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In this work two approaches to the description of short fatigue crack growth rate under large-scale yielding condition were comprehensively tested: (i) plastic component of the J-integral and (ii) Polák model of crack propagation. The ability to predict residual fatigue life of bodies with short initial cracks was studied for stainless steels Sanicro 25 and 304L. Despite their coarse microstructure and very different cyclic stress–strain response, the employed continuum mechanics models were found to give satisfactory results. Finite element modeling was used to determine the J-integrals and to simulate the evolution of crack front shapes, which corresponded to the real cracks observed on the fracture surfaces of the specimens. Residual fatigue lives estimated by these models were in good agreement with the number of cycles to failure of individual test specimens strained at various total strain amplitudes. Moreover, the crack growth rates of both investigated materials fell onto the same curve that was previously obtained for other steels with different properties. Such a “master curve” was achieved using the plastic part of J-integral and it has the potential of being an advantageous tool to model the fatigue crack propagation under large-scale yielding regime without a need of any additional experimental data.

Precipitation of γ’ phase in nickel-base superalloy IN792-5A was studied using in-situ Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS). It was found that additional precipitates are formed after reheating above 600 °C when the material is previously fast cooled (100 K/min) from 900 °C. The size distribution and volume fraction of the additional γ’ precipitates as well as of the already present medium-size precipitates in dependence on temperature were evaluated. The small precipitates can influence mechanical properties of the alloy, which exhibits an anomaly in the temperature dependence of the yield stress. Volume fraction of all precipitate populations above 900 °C was estimated as well.