Fatigue Crack Growth Behavior of Corner Cracks under LBH Loading

This investigation aims at doing some durability and damage tolerant (DaDT) tests with 2124-T851 aluminum specimens having corner cracks under a random history, correlating with the simulation results from AFGROW and then drawing some conclusions from those comparisons. Two hydraulic actuators and a homemade Wood’s alloy grip are employed to do the test. The surface crack lengths are measured by a traveling microscope and used as a reference for the later fractography. The crack penetration and the total lives are about 17 and 27 blocks, respectively. The crack length and depth are evaluated by the fractography after completing each test and used to grasp the shape change. The Forman equation is used to simulate the fatigue crack growth behavior according to a bearing stress ratio extensively. The crack penetration life is decreased as the bearing stress ratio increases. The crack aspect ratio is very dependent on the bearing stress ratio. The LBH loading accelerates the fatigue crack growth in the crack depth direction but decelerates that in the length direction until crack penetration.