Issue 48

R. Baptista et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 48 (2019) 257-268; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.48.27 257 Focused on the “Portuguese contributions for Structural Integrity” Algorithm for automatic fatigue crack growth simulation on welded high strength steels R. Baptista CDP2T, Department of Mechanical Engineering, ESTSetúbal, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Campus do IPS, Estefanilha, 2914-761 Setúbal, Portugal LAETA, IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal ricardo.baptista@estsetubal.ips.pt , https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5955-8418 J. Marques Instituto Superior Técnico, ULisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal joao.p.ribeiro.marques@ist.utl.pt, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0108-6363 V. Infante LAETA, IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal virginia.infante@tecnico.ulisboa.pt, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0860-2404 A BSTRACT . Nowadays the demand for high strength steels is increasing. In order to design and develop high performance products, it is essential to understand the fatigue behavior of these materials. When considering welded components, the fatigue behavior is even more complex. The material parameters may change along the crack growth and mixed mode crack propagation may also occur. To assess welded high strength steel fatigue behavior, different welded CT specimens were tested. The Paris law material constants were obtained for the heat affected zone material. Fatigue crack growth life predictions were made using the obtained parameters and different automatic techniques. Previous work showed that the ABAQUS extended finite element method can predict fatigue crack growth, but as the implementation of the Paris law is not straight forward, to many conversions must be made and the results are too computer intensive. A simpler and more intuitive Python algorithm was developed, to enable the use of the experimental material parameters, to predict the crack propagation path. The obtain results show a good agreement with both the experimental Paris curves, and the analytical solution. K EYWORDS . Fatigue; Crack Propagation; Mixed Mode; Welded High Strength Steel. Citation: Baptista, R., Marques, J., Infante, V., Algorithm for automatic fatigue crack growth simulation on welded high strength steels, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 48 (2019) 257-268. Received: 14.09.2018 Accepted: 29.10.2018 Published: 01.01.2019 Copyright: © 2019 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.