Fatigue reliability of cracked engineering structures

This study investigates the reliability of engineering structures containing fatigue cracks. Stress concentrations and welded joints are probable locations for the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks. Due to the many unknowns of loading, materials properties, crack sizes and crack shapes present at these locations, a statistics-based reliability analysis is valuable in the careful consideration of these many different random factors involved in a fatigue life analysis, several of which are expanded upon in this study. The basic problem of a crack near a stress concentration is first considered. A formulation for the aspect ratio (a/c) of a propagating semi-elliptical fatigue crack located at the toe of a welded T-joint is developed using Newman and Raju's stress intensity factor for a cracked flat plate with a weld magnification factor and compared to that of a cracked flat plate, and the reliability in terms of fatigue lifetime is calculated with the aid of Paris' crack propagation equation for membrane and bending loadings. Crack closure effects are then introduced in the consideration of short crack effects, where crack growth rates typically may exceed those found using traditional linear elastic fracture mechanics solutions for long cracks. The probability of a very small, microstructurally influenced crack growing to a size influenced by local plastic conditions is calculated utilizing the probability of a crack continuing to grow past an obstacle, such as a grain boundary. The result is then combined with the probability for failure defined using the crack closure-modified Paris equation to find an overall reliability for the structure. Last, the probability of fracture is determined when a crack front encounters regions of non-uniform toughness, such as typical in the heat affected zone of a welded joint. An expression for the effective crack lengths of the dissimilar regions is derived, and used in a weakest-link fracture model in the evaluation of the fracture toughness of the cracked joint.