Rethinking scaling laws in the high-cycle fatigue response of nanostructured and coarse-grained metals

Abstract The high-cycle fatigue life of nanocrystalline and ultrafine-grained Ni-Fe is examined for five distinct grain sizes ranging from approximately 50 to 600 nm. The fatigue properties are strongly dependent on grain size, with the endurance limit changing by a factor of 4. The dataset suggests a breakdown in fatigue improvement for the smallest grain sizes