Open Access

ARTICLE

Crack Growth Simulation in Integrally Stiffened Structures Including Residual Stress Effects from Manufacturing. Part II: Modelling and Experiments Comparison

by S.M.O. Tavares¹, S.M. Häusler², P.M. Baiz³, P.M.S.T. de Castro¹, M.H. Aliabadi³

1 IDMEC-FEUP, Universidade do Porto, Portugal. (IDMEC)
2 Technische Universitat Braunschweig, Germany. (IFL)
3 Imperial College London, UK. (IMPERIAL)

Structural Durability & Health Monitoring 2011, 7(3), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.3970/sdhm.2011.007.191

Abstract

This article is the second part of a two parts paper which presents, compares and discusses the different crack growth simulation models which were introduced for fatigue crack growth assessment during the DaToN project. In the first part, different simulation approaches were applied to determine a calibration of the stress intensity factors as a function of the crack length for a two stiffeners panel with a central crack. Due to the residual stress field promoted by the different manufacturing processes, its influence was included in the numerical models to determine the stress intensity factors. In this second part, the stress intensity factors calibrations are applied in different crack growth models in order to determine the fatigue life under cyclic loads. Paris, Walker, Forman and NASGRO were used for this purpose. The incorporation of the load ratio variation and of the effect of the residual stresses is in general possible in all of them allowing to determine the influence of the residual stress field in the fatigue crack growth.
The results were tested and compared with experimental results with the purpose of validation of the models.
These numerical models demonstrate that (i) it is possible to predict the fatigue life in stiffened welded panels and (ii) the residual stress field originated by welding processes can be detrimental or beneficial depending on the location where the crack starts.

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Keywords

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