CRACK GROWTH OF 2D SMALL SCALE YIELDING MODEL UNDER VARIABLE AMPLITUDE LOADING

The present work presents the numerical determination of fatigue crack opening and closure stress intensity factors of a C(T) specimen under variable amplitude loading by finite element method. A half compact tension C(T) specimen, assuming plane stress constraint, was modeled by finite element method. The effects in two-dimensional (2D) small scale yielding models of fatigue crack growth under modified Mini-Falstaff spectrum loading were studied. The crack propagation model was based on release nodes in the minimum loads to minimize convergence problems. To understand the crack propagation processes under variable amplitude loading, retardations models were observed.