PSI - Issue 81

Jesús Toribio et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 81 (2026) 536–538

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5. Conclusions In both steels, the fatigue crack growth behaviour is globally isotropic (fatigue crack propagation in global mode I) and locally anisotropic (fatigue crack propagation in local mixed mode with alternating micro-deflections). This local anisotropy of fatigue behaviour in heavily cold drawn pearlitic steels is due to the anisotropic ( oriented ) microstructure regarding pearlitic colonies and lamellae. Epilogue: Following the wake of Antonio Machado The fundamental idea of crack path recalls the famous words by the major Spanish poet Antonio Machado: “ se hace camino al andar ”, as there is no previous path, but the path is made as the crack grows. The verses by Antonio Machado (in Spanish) are as follows:

Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar …..... Caminante, no hay camino sino estelas en el mar . A possible translation into English could be:

Walker, there is no path, the path is made by walking …..... Walker, there is no path but wakes in the sea . Therefore, this paper tries to follow the wake of Antonio Machado, and the beautiful poetic idea of wakes in the sea provides a heartfelt tribute to the Poet. References Gray III, G.T., Thompson, A.W., Williams, J.C., 1985. Influence of Microstructure on Fatigue Crack Initiation in Fully Pearlitic Steels. Metallurgical Transactions 16A, 753-760. Korda, AA., Mutoh, Y., Miyashita, Y., Sadasue, T., 2006a. Effects of Pearlite Morphology and Specimen Thickness on Fatigue Crack Growth Resistance in Ferritic - Pearlitic Steels. Materials Science and Engineering A 428, 262–269. Korda, AA., Mutoh, Y., Miyashita, Y., Sadasue, T., Mannan, SL., 2006b. In situ Observation of Fatigue Crack Retardation in Banded Ferrite - Pearlite Microstructure due to Crack Branching. Scripta Materialia 54, 1835–1840. Ravichandran, K.S., 1991. A Rationalisation of Fatigue Thresholds in Pearlitic Steels using a Theoretical Model. Acta Metallurgica et Materialia 39, 1331-1341. Toribio, J., Ovejero, E., 1997. Microstructure Evolution in a Pearlitic Steel Subjected to Progressive Plastic Deformation. Materials Science and Engineering A234 236, 579 - 582. Toribio, J., Ovejero, E., 1998a. Microstructure Orientation in a Pearlitic Steel Subjected to Progressive Plastic Deformation. Journal of Materials Science Letters 17, 1037 - 1040. Toribio, J., Ovejero, E., 1998b. Effect of Cumulative Cold Drawing on the Pearlite Interlamellar Spacing in Eutectoid Steel. Scripta Materialia 39, 323 - 328. Toribio, J., Ovejero, E., 1998c. Effect of Cold Drawing on Microstructure and Corrosion Performance of High - Strength Steel. Mechanics of Time - Dependent Materials 1, 307 - 319. Toribio, J., Toledano, M., 1999. Fatigue Behaviour of Progressively Drawn Steels, Proceedings of the Seventh International Fatigue Congress (Wu X.R. and Wang Z.G., editors), Beijing, June, EMAS, West Midlands. Toribio, J., Toledano, M., 2000. Fatigue and Fracture Performance of Cold Drawn Wires for Prestressed Concrete. Construction and Building Materials 14, 47-53.