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Fatigue Crack Growth. Analysis and Predictions

  • Chapter
Fatigue of Structures and Materials

In Chapter 2 the fatigue life until failure has been divided into two periods: (i) the crack initiation period, and (ii) crack growth period. Crack nucleation and microcrack growth in the first period are primarily phenomena occurring at the material surface. The second period starts when the fatigue crack penetrates into the subsurface material away from the material surface. The growth of the fatigue crack is then depending of the crack growth resistance of the material as a bulk property. The two previous chapters, Chapters 6 and 7, mainly deal with fatigue in the crack initiation period. The subject of the present chapter is fatigue crack growth in the second period. It could also be referred to as the growth of macro fatigue cracks.

Under which conditions is crack growth in the second period of practical interest? Obviously, the load spectrum should contain stress cycles above the fatigue limit in order to have a fatigue crack problem. Secondly, some macrocrack growth must be acceptable, but it should then be known how fast crack growth occurs. Two well-known examples are:

  1. (i)

    Crack growth in sheet material where the crack is growing through the full thickness of the material. An obvious example is fatigue crack growth in aircraft skin structures.

  2. (ii)

    A second example is the growth of part through cracks, see Figure 5.3 where a corner crack or a surface crack starts at a hole. Part through cracks also occur as surface cracks in welded structures at the toe of a weld. In many practical cases, part through cracks are associated with massive components and thick plate structures.

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Professor of Aircraft Materials (Emeritus), Delft University of Technology Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jaap Schijve

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(2009). Fatigue Crack Growth. Analysis and Predictions. In: Schijve, J. (eds) Fatigue of Structures and Materials. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6808-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6808-9_8

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