• Trogh, Sven
• De Tender, Steven
• Micone, Nahuel
• Hectors, Kris
• Waele, Wim De

Abstract

This paper reports on an experimental study of fatigue crack growth in steel specimens. First, block loading tests (sequences of low and high stress intensity factor ranges ΔK) are discussed. Limited crack growth retardation occurs at transitions from low to high load ranges; significant retardation or crack arrest are observed in high-low transitions. Next, semi-random load spectra are created, processed using a peak-and-valley analysis and further reduced by removing the load ranges below the stress intensity factor threshold ΔKth. Rainflow counting is performed to obtain load profiles consisting of a sequence of blocks with constant ΔK. For the semi-random and the (reduced) peak-and-valley spectra no significant load interaction is observed. Pronounced crack growth retardation is observed in an ordered spectrum obtained by rainflow counting. The strong reduction in number of cycles of the (reduced) peak-and-valley spectra allows for exploration of accelerated fatigue testing. Experimental results of fatigue crack propagation are compared to results of calculations using a Python based numerical framework.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• crack
• steel
• fatigue
• random
• fatigue testing