Fatigue crack growth and remaining life assessment of 2024 aluminum with variation in microstructure

Abstract

The LTSM-F crack growth model is implemented in the present work for the assessment of crack growth and remaining fatigue life of 2024 aluminium alloy with different microstructure. The effect of microstructure in the crack growth analysis is simulated by means of respective yield strength and fracture toughness values of the material. The analytical results obtained are compared against experimental results performed on a series of fatigue crack growth specimens of the alloy under constant amplitude and irregular loading including overload and real stress histories. The analytical results demonstrate the potential of the model to account for crack growth behaviour under irregular loading conditions of dissimilar microstructures. Copyright© 2009 by ASME.