Current aspects of fatigue

Abstract

AbstractAbstractSome of the recent developments in fatigue-crack initiation and growth are reviewed. With respect to fatigue-crack initiation, persistent slip bands can be importantly involved, and the understanding of PSB formation should in turn lead to a better understanding of the crack -initiation process. In the crack growth stage the topics of crack closure and overload effects are of interest. In the near-threshold region the observed high closure levels may be associated with crack growth in Mode II. It is shown that the overload retardation effect is a surface-related phenomenon, and the dependence of closure and overload effects on specimen geometry are discussed. Additional consideration is given to environmental effects, minimum flaw size limitations in the fracture approach, and the modelling of the crack -growth process.