AN ENGINEERING ASSESSMENT OF FATIGUE CRACK GROWTH OF IRREGULARLY ORIENTED MULTIPLE CRACKS

Abstract— Knowledge of the behaviour of interacting and irregularly oriented multiple cracks is very limited. The recharacterisation rules for such cracks are usually empirical. In order to provide more reasonable rules for an engineering assessment of fatigue growth of irregularly oriented multiple cracks, this paper first studies the mechanics of fatigue growth of two‐dimensional non‐coplanar cracks. Uniaxial and biaxial fatigue testing on specimens with various multiple cracks are then carried out. Possible errors in the assessment of the cracks using the current rules are discussed. An improved procedure for the fatigue life assessment is developed.