How proper similitude principles could have improved our understanding about fatigue damage growth

How proper similitude principles could have improved our understanding about fatigue damage growth

Alderliesten, R.C.

Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Structures and Materials

2015-12-31

This paper discusses similitude parameters for predicting fatigue damage growth, and demonstrates that proper principles exploiting the strain energy release could have improved our knowledge on fatigue damage growth. The paper demonstrates how the original Stress Intensity Factor concept introduced by Irwin has been introduced inconsistently for describing fatigue crack growth. Subsequently, it illustrates how this has led to misinterpretation of certain phenomena, like for example plasticity induced crack closure. Using proper similitude in agreement with the physics of observed fatigue damage phenomena, it is demonstrated how the average strain energy release over a single load cycle should relate to the crack surface extension in that same load cycle. The paper concludes with illustrating how phenomena like for example plasticity and fibre bridging in composites can be understood and quantified.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fe8d2b88-f6b0-4844-8b89-d97904a660e8

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

978-951-38-7442-1

Proceedings of the 34th Conference and the 28th Symposium of the ICAF, Helsinki, Finland, 1-5 June 2015

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2015 Alderliesten, R.C.