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Fatigue Crack Growth under Variable-Amplitude Loading

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Fatigue of Structures and Materials

Fatigue under Variable-Amplitude (VA) loading was discussed in the previous chapter. Key words of the discussion were: prediction of fatigue life until failures, the Miner rule and its shortcomings, fatigue damage of cycles with an amplitude below the fatigue limit, residual stress effects due to notch root plasticity, and service-simulation fatigue tests as an alternative to Miner rule predictions. The fatigue life was supposed to include the crack initiation period and the crack growth period until failure. It was tacitly assumed that the crack growth period was relatively short and could be disregarded. The present chapter is dealing with the growth of macrocracks under VA loading. The crack initiation period dealing with crack nucleation and microcrack growth is not addressed.

The propagation of macrocracks is a significant issue if fatigue cracks cannot be avoided, especially if safety or economy is involved. Dangerous situations can occur in pressure vessels, high-speed rotating masses (turbine disks, blades of wind turbines) and aircraft structures as some characteristic examples. Incidental cracks can be generated by a variety of conditions; such as surface damage, corrosion pits, material defects in welded joints, inferior production quality, etc. Furthermore, the fatigue life of a structure in service may cover many years. The occurrence of macrocracks can then be acceptable in order to avoid a low design stress level and a corresponding heavy structure.

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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 under Variable-Amplitude Loading. In: Schijve, J. (eds) Fatigue of Structures and Materials. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6808-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6808-9_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-6807-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-6808-9

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