Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, Kashmir, India, 190 006
The crack length a versus the number of loading cycles N is required by the designers for life predictions based on the damage tolerance philosophy. The objective of this work is to describe a computational method for determination of errors which occur if the fatigue crack growth is computed on the basis of an assumed crack extension. Calculations have been compared with cycle-by-cycle method of crack extension. It is shown that for assumed crack extension method to give meaningful results there is an optimal value of assumed value of crack extension below and above which fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) calculations do not agree with experimental data. There is an excellent agreement between optimal value of crack extension based life predictions of test components and experimental data available in the literature.
Constant amplitude loading, computational errors, cycle-by-cycle Analysis
