Issue 33

M.-L. Zhu et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 33 (2015) 67-72; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.33.09 67 Focussed on characterization of crack tip fields Near tip strain evolution of a growing fatigue crack M.-L. Zhu University of Portsmouth, UK East China University of Science and Technology, China Y.-W. Lu, C. Lupton, J. Tong University of Portsmouth, UK jie.tong@port.ac.uk A BSTRACT . Near tip full-field strains in a growing fatigue crack have been studied in situ using the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique in a compact tension specimen of stainless steel 316L under tension-tension cyclic loading. An error analysis of displacements and strains has been carried out, and the results show that the precision of displacements and strains in the wake of the crack is worse than that in front of the crack. A method for the determination of crack tip location is proposed for the DIC analysis. Strain ratchetting is observed ahead of the growing fatigue crack tip and found to be dependent on the distance to the crack tip; whilst normal strains appear to stabilise behind the crack tip. K EYWORDS . DIC; Crack tip; Error analysis; Fatigue crack growth; Strain ratchetting. I NTRODUCTION lthough strain-based approaches have been proposed [1, 2] to deal with fatigue crack growth since the 60s, our interest in this line of enquiry began some 10 years ago, mainly using numerical simulations [3-7], where near-tip strain ratchetting was found to be common in several materials, regardless the constitutive laws used [3-5] or the numerical simulation strategies [4-6]. We hypothesise that if the normal strain near and ahead of the crack tip continues to accumulate with fatigue cycles, the material ahead of the crack tip will eventually fail thus prompting crack growth. Although this concept has been successfully applied to rationalise fatigue crack growth in nickel-based superalloys [3], direct experimental validation was not possible until very recently, when the first experimental evidence of near-tip strain ratchetting was reported for stationary [8] and growing cracks [9] using in situ DIC systems. The strain distribution near a fatigue crack tip obtained from the DIC analysis may be influenced by data processing parameters used in the DIC analysis. An accurate assessment of the near-tip strains based on the DIC technique requires the knowledge of the errors in the measured displacements and strains; hence methods may be developed in the testing and analysis to minimize the errors. Strain ratchetting behaviour has been observed for relatively straight cracks [8, 9], whilst evaluation of the strain evolution in a growing crack along a tortuous path is more challenging. Determination of the exact location of the crack tip in such a situation is another challenge, which is important to a quantitative interpretation of crack tip micro-mechanical behaviour. In the present work, we report an error assessment of the displacements and strains measured using the DIC system; and a method to determine the locations of the instantaneous crack tip with a tortuous path. The evolution of normal strain range with fatigue cycles was tracked and the critical strain values at incipient crack growth were obtained. A