Figure 1.

Extended service life of a cracked component

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The major share of the fatigue life of the component may be taken up in the propagation of crack. By applying fracture mechanics principles it is possible to predict the number of cycles spent in growing a crack to some specified length or to final failure. The aircraft industry has leaded the effort to understand and predict fatigue crack growth. They have developed the safe-life or fail-safe design approach. In this method, a component is designed in a way that if a crack forms, it will not grow to a critical size between specified inspection intervals. Thus, by knowing the material growth rate characteristics and with regular inspections, a cracked component may be kept in service for an e tended useful life. This concept is shown schematically in !ig. "

The threshold region The threshold region is not associated with the non-propagating microcracks discussed in #hapter $ %&ection $.'.(). These microcracks were nucleated at the material surface, but due to microstructural barriers, they could not penetrate into the material. The cracks remained microcracks. The threshold value _Kth in this section is associated with macro fatigue crack growth. It implies that _Kth is concerned with fatigue cracks which have grown to a macroscopic size at a _K level above _Kth. If _K is then decreased, crack growth slows down and it is assumed that no further growth occurs if _K is below _Kth. The *uestion is whether a uni*ue threshold level for crack growth, _Kth, does e ist, and how this level could be determined in fatigue tests. +bviously, _K must be decreased in a test to obtain zero crack growth at the threshold level. ,owever, this can be done in different ways, see !igure -... The K reduction should be done in small steps, actually smaller steps than suggested in !igure -... /fter each step, a large number of cycles % _N) must be applied to see whether the crack is still growing or has been arrested. If the crack The Paris region /ccording to 0aris 1.2, the relation between da/dN and K can be described by a power function3

da dN = C_Km %-.4) with C and the e ponent m as material constants. The e*uation in a double log plot gives a linear relation3 log(da/dN) = log(C) + mlog(K) with m as the slope of the linear function, see !igure -.5. 6*uation %-.4) has some limitations. It does not account for the R-effect on crack growth, neither for the asymptotic behavior in regions I and III. &everal alternative functions have been proposed in the literature to overcome this problem. &ome are mentioned below. !orman 1-2 proposed the following3 Stable-tearing crack growth region The crack growth rate in the stable-tearing crack growth region is high, in the order of 7.7" mm8cycle and above. +bservations on the fatigue fracture surface in the electron microscope still reveal patches of fatigue striations caused by a number of successive cycles. ,owever, the striation spacing is generally smaller than da/dN derived from the crack growth curve a(N). 9ocal areas of ductile tearing are observed between the patches of striations. :uctile tearing does not yet occur along the entire crack front, and for that reason crack growth is still a stable process. !urther crack growth re*uires additional cyclic loading, but the stable ductile tearing areas indicate that unstable final failure is imminent. The crack growth life spent in this region is very short, which implies that its engineering significance is limited. 0redictions on the occurrence of the final unstable failure are apparently simple, because it should occur if Kma = Kc. By definition, Kc is the stress intensity factor causing final failure. ,owever, usually Kc for structural materials is not a constant material property. !inal failure for several materials with some ductility occurs when the remaining net section is plastically yielding over its entire width %net section yielding). In such cases, the value Kc as a stress intensity factor is meaningless. The stress intensity factor is based on elastic material behavior with small-scale yielding at the crack tip only. ;oreover, in Kc e periments substantial stable crack e tension can occur before the unstable situation is reached. It depends on the dimensions of the specimen.

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Fatigue Life Calculation Example: A relatively large sheet of steel is exposed to cyclic tensile and compressive stresses of magnitudes 100 !a and "0 !a# respectively$ !rior to testing# it has %een determined that the length of the largest surface crac& is 'mm$ Estimate the fatigue life of this sheet if the critical crac& length is '0mm and the values of mand C are ($0 and 1x10)1'$ Assume that is independent of crac& length and has a value of 1$0