A Surrogate Approach to Reveal Microstructural Mechanisms Controlling the 3D Short Crack Growth in a Ti-6Al-4V Alloy

Microstructural features and short crack growth behavior were characterized and linked in a Ti-6Al-4V by employing X-ray micro-tomography combined with EBSD serial sectioning. Statistical analysis was used to rank the contributing features to the crack behavior. Afterwards, by creating surrogate models, the microstructural mechanism controlling the short crack behavior were revealed. Short crack preferably grows inside the predominant α phase above the average microstructural fraction. A high number of grains in contact with cracked α grains elongated in the loading direction may impose a constraint on the crack opening resulting in low crack growth rates. As the crack front becomes larger, the increase in the shear stress field away from the cracked grain leads to crack bifurcations, resulting in a decrease in crack driving forces with low crack growth rates. This leads to a preferable growth in α+β phase and along the interface above the average microstructural fractions.