21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-5.7.1

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FATIGUE CRACK CLOSURE BEHAVIOUR UNDER BIAXIAL LOADING

Zhuang W. Z., Wang C. H.
Aeronautical and Maritime Research Lab., Australia

Keywords: numerical simulation, fatigue crack closure, biaxial loading

Fatigue crack closure behaviour of a center-cracked panel under cyclic biaxial loading conditions was investigated using finite element methods. Under the biaxial loading the calculated crack opening and closure stresses are found to correlate closely with the results reported in the literature. To account for the influence of biaxial loading, the Brown & Miller's model is modified to estimate the plastic zone size and the crack-tip opening displacement. Comparison with finite element results demonstrates that the modified model offers a considerable improvement over the original.

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