Effect of sample size and grain boundaries on dislocation structures and damage evolution in small-scale samples: A micro-fatigue investigation

Fatigue failure, one of the most investigated failure mechanisms, occur in a wide variety of engineering components. The recent growing interest in small scale materials for sensors or actuators have raised new questions regarding the length scale influence on fatigue. As the scale is in the range of typical fatigue dislocation structures, size limitations on the formation of persistent slip bands (PSBs), cell structures and the initiation of fatigue cracks at grain boundaries (GB) are some of the relevant questions to be answer. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract