Contribution to the Life Prediction of Aluminium Alloys Parts under Isothermal Fatigue

Abstract

Lifetime prediction, Isothermal fatigue, damage, cracking, aluminium alloys. Abstract. In this work, a tool for lifetime prediction of aluminium alloys parts employed under isothermal fatigue was developed. This tool is a computer code implemented in a "Visual-Fortran" environment and based on a coupled model of the elastoplastic damage accumulation presented by "Lemaitre and Chaboche" [. This model allows us to describe the damage evolution depending on the number of cycles until failure of the representative volume element (RVE). This failure results in the creation of a macro-crack, its propagation over loading cycles to reach a critical size which will cause the part breakdown. The crack growth phase cannot be neglected because it may contain a considerable number of cycles, this is why we have included in the developed model, this phase of crack growth after the initiation phase; it contains mainly the numerical integration of the "Paris" law.