Fatigue life of a Nd:YAG laser-welded metal ceramic alloy.

Fifteen laser-welded Olympia alloy samples were divided into three groups of five samples each, with different gap distances between the welded halves. The first group was welded with a 0.0-mm gap distance. The second and third groups had Olympia shims placed in 0.3- and 1.0-mm gaps, respectively, prior to laser welding. Each of the samples was tested to failure in load fatigue at 30 Hz in a fatigue testing device using an applied stress of 35,000 psi (241.4 MPa). The means and standard deviations for the number of cycles required to produce fatigue failure for each group was 494,618 +/- 118,311 cycles for the group welded with 0.0-mm gap distance, and 242,741 +/- 44,623 and 232,021 +/- 55,877 cycles for the 0.3- and 1.0-mm specimens, respectively. A one-way analysis of variance showed that the 0.0-mm gap specimens had the greatest number of cycles to failure (P < or = 0.05). There was no significant difference between the other two groups. With the exception of two specimens that failed at the weld center, all failures occurred at the edge of the weld.