Abstract: The corrosion fatigue propagation behaviour of high strength low alloy Cr-Ni and Si-Mn steels has been investigated in 3.5 %NaCl solution spryly at the frequencies of 0.1 and 5.5 Hz. It was shown that the fatigue crack initiation resistances of the two steels are significantly re- duced in salt spray;the fatigue crack growth rates of steels increase with the decrease of fre- quency and are much higher in salt spray than in air within low ΔK range.A critical stress in- tensity factor was observed for each steel and the crack growth stoppage will occur if the ΔK values are lower than it.It was found that the active dissolution makes great contribution to the fatigue crack growth within low ΔK range.

Key words: salt spray, initiation period, crack growth stoppage, closure effect