Modeling of Complex Fatigue Growth of Cracks in Plates

Analysis of crack growth in mechanical components with use of analytical methods requires usually simplification regarding the crack shape, component geometry, and stress distribution. More complicated tasks, especially related to cracks with arbitrary contour shape and/or undergoing in service non-uniform stress distribution need numerical methods of crack growth analysis. Alternatively, an advantage can be taken of the method based on the calculation of stress intensity factor (SIF) using the point-load weight functions (WF2D). Capability of this method is presented in the paper on examples of complex fatigue crack growth. Comparisons of results obtained using the WF2D and classical approach are presented as well.