Fatigue crack growth of Al 5083-H111 subjected to mixed-mode loading

Abstract

Fatigue is a major cause of failure in several industries, and in many practical cases, local mixed-mode conditions prevail at the crack front. The effect of plane mode mixity on the crack growth rate and crack growth direction has been investigated. Fatigue crack growth experiments have been conducted on aluminum alloy Al5083-H111 for several mode mixities. A fixture was manufactured in order to apply the different combinations of mode I and II by changing loading angle. Afterward, three-dimensional simulations have been implemented using the Zencrack software. Based on numerical simulations, new relations are proposed to estimate stress intensity factors for compact tension shear geometry by modifying Richard’s equations [1].