Paris Law-Based Approach to Fatigue Crack Growth in Notched Plates under Tension Loading

Abstract

In this paper the crack path is studied for corner and surface flaws emanating from semicircular notch in plates of finite thickness subjected to cyclic tension loading. To this end, a numerical modeling was performed to evaluate the advance of the crack front on the basis of the Paris equation and the stress intensity factor solutions provided by Newman et al. Results show how the growing cracks tend towards a preferential propagation path. The convergence (closeness between crack propagation curves) is faster as the ratio of the notch radius to the plate thickness increases, and also quicker for corner cracks tan for surface flaws.