Creep-fatigue interaction in eutectic lead-tin solder alloy

A test protocol pivoting about stress cycling where the load waves were trapazoidal and the cycling frequency controlled by balanced time on load and off load was used to determine frequency, mean tensile stress, and compressive stress effects on the creep-fatigue behaviour of the Pb-Sn eutectic solder alloy at ambient temperature. It is consistently found that the minimum creep (or cyclic creep) rate decreases as frequency increases, that is, as hold time decreases. Both the number of cycles to failure as well as the time to failure increases as frequency increases. The cyclic creep rate increases drastically and the number of cycles to failure decreases drastically as the mean applied stress is increased. These results are consistent with anelastic strain recovery mechanism for creep-fatigue interaction. Similar results are also found in butt-joint solder junction configured specimens. © 1987 Chapman and Hall Ltd.