Abstract
Fatigue is a major issue for critical structures, and it can be very significant for structural systems composed of metal plate-like components. Finite Element (FE) analysis has been proved to be an efficient and reliable simulation tool for damage assessment of plate structures under fatigue. However, this approach is still quite challenging and some issues still need to be fully addressed. The FE models are often extremely complex as well as the required computational costs are frequently high. This study presents the numerical simulation of the fatigue fracture in Nickel steel compact tension (CT) samples by means of FE analysis in ABAQUS. The eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) is coupled to the direct cyclic Low-Cycle Fatigue (LCF) approach to address the issues related to common modelling of fracture. The fatigue response is implemented by using the well-known Paris law. The model is easy to implement and the analysis does not require high computational time. The numerical crack propagation curves fit the experimental results better than the analytical solution. The numerical assessment of the fatigue life and fracture toughness also agrees with the experimental data.
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