Numerical simulation of fatigue crack growth of a welded structural component under block program fatigue test

Numerical simulations of fatigue crack growth of welded structural component were performed under fatigue testing conditions with block loading and constant stress range and the fatigue crack growth profiles were measured under the same loading conditions. In the experiments, fatigue cracks developed at the boxing fillet welded toe and grew toward the top flange plates of the specimens.An advanced fracture mechanics approach based on the improved effective stress intensity factor range, which is the RPG (Re-tensile Plastic zone Generating) stress criterion, was applied to perform the numerical simulations of fatigue crack growth in the modeled components. A comparison of estimated fatigue crack growth profiles with measured ones verified that a reasonable estimation of fatigue crack growth can be estimated by applying the proposed numerical method.Copyright © 2014 by ASME