SEDL / STP / STP918-EB / STP19335S

Fatigue Crack Growth Predictions of Welded Aircraft Structures Containing Flaws in the Residual Stress Field

Chang, JB
Adjunct professor, Northrop University, Inglewood, CA

Pages: 17    Published: Jan 1986

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Abstract

Welded structures often contain flaws or crack-like defects. The need to develop a reliable methodology to predict the fatigue crack growth behavior of such flaws, whether embedded in the body or exposed to the surface of the welded structure, is obvious. This paper describes the use of the analytical prediction methodology implemented in a computer code, EFFGRO III, for performing the fatigue crack life prediction of an embedded flaw contained in a welded aircraft structure subjected to a fully reversed flight spectrum loading. Effects of residual stresses to the crack growth were accounted for in the analytical prediction. Results of the analytical prediction were compared to the test data. Good correlations were shown.