Abstract: In order to understand the basic mechanism of intergranular cracking in pure metals during fatigue, stress-controlled push-pull fatigue tests were carried out with high purity aluminium. Tests were interrupted frequently so as to study the grain boundary (GB) cracking behaviour by the surface observation. The results show that crack initiation at GB was a process controlled by multi-factors, such as boundary structure, GB-slip interaction, GB sliding and so on. If these factors are varied so that the incompati- bility at a GB increased, the possibility of cyacking at the boundary will be raised. Some inteygranular cracking phenomena are not able to be explained by the GB stepping mechanism.

Key words: intergranular crack, grain boundary structure, CSL theory, fatigue, strain incompatibility