Crack Paths 2012

against

The numerical diagram of D

[ is shown in Fig. 3, for five different initial

cracks (see continuous and dashed curves). It can be observed that fatigue crack growth

paths tend to converge to a commoninclined asymptote.

Experimental results [3] are also reported in Fig. 3: the solid symbols indicate the

values of D and [ for the semi-ellipses that best fit the beach marked crack fronts during

the fatigue tests examined. The numerical fatigue crack growth paths are in satisfactory

agreement with the experimental results, expecially for the cases from B to E.

CRT A T I O ,

EXP. A

N U M .

BC

0.67

D

C R A C K A S P E

E

0.5

0.8

0.4

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6

R E L A T I VCER A CDKE P T H ,

[ = a/t

vs [. Experimental results are also reported (solid symbols).

Figure 3. Diagram of D

Figure 4 displays the loading cycle number N against the relative crack depth [,

together with beach mark data from experimental tests. By comparing numerical and

experimental results, it can be observed that the proposed model is able to correctly

estimate the value of N .

R E L A T I V E C R A C K D E P T H ,

0.6

0.5

0.4

EXP.

N U M .

A

0.3

B

0.2

C

D

0.1

E

0.0

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

N U M B EO RFC Y C L E S , N / 104

Figure 4. Diagram of N vs [.

Experimental results are also reported (solid symbols).

293