LEFM

Fatigue cracks nucleate and grow when stresses vary and there is some tension in each stress
cycle. In High Cycle Fatigue, we can observe crack initiation, crack growth and catastrophic
failure. In Low Cycle Fatigue, the stresses are very high and the component may fail within
1000 cycles.
The stress-life and the strain-life methods are used respectively for the design and analysis of
High Cycle Fatigue and Low Cycle Fatigue respectively. If crack growth is to be studied,
which occurs in High Cycle Fatigue, then Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) has to
be studied
If in a structure subjected to fatigue loading, if a crack is detected using NDT methods, the
questions to be answered are: Is it safe and for how long to operate the machine ? Is it
possible to monitor the crack growth so that one can discard the component before
catastrophic failure can occur?
Though stress-life or S-N diagrams are used to study High Cycle Fatigue, these S-N diagrams
cannot be used to study the growth of fatigue crack. Because, no attempt is made in fatigue
testing to detect and monitor crack growth. So, in order to get more information on crack
growth, more exhaustive tests are to be performed.

Stress Intensity Factor (SIF):

The SIF is a function of geometry, size, shape of the crack and type of loading. It is given as
KI = α σ (π a)0.5
Here, a is the crack length (a for edge crack and 2a for inside crack) ), Δσ is the stress range (
Δσ = σmax - σmin) and α is called the stress intensity modification factor which is dependent on
crack geometry.

Fracture toughness: When the SIF reaches a particular value, crack growth initiates. This
value is called as critical SIF denoted as KIC. It is also called as fracture toughness of the
material. It is dependent on material, crack mode, processing of the material, temperature,
loading rate, and the state of stress at the crack site.

Crack Growth Curve:

Assuming an initial crack length of ai, crack growth as a function of the number of stress
cycles N will depend on Δσ, that is, KI. For KI below some threshold value (KI)th a crack will
not grow. Figure below represents the crack length a as a function of N for three stress levels
(Δσ)3 > (Δσ)2 > (Δσ)1, where (KI)3 > (KI)2 > (KI)1 for a given crack size. Notice the effect of
the higher stress range in Figure in the production of longer cracks at a particular cycle count.
When the rate of crack growth per cycle, da/d N in Figure, is plotted as shown in Figure, the
data from all three stress range levels superpose to give a sigmoidal curve. The three
stages of crack development are observable, and the stage II data are linear on log-log
coordinates, within the domain of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) validity. A group
of similar curves can be generated by changing the stress ratio R = σmin/σmax of the
experiment.
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First, a standard specimen for fatigue testing is loaded and the growth of the crack is
monitored using NDT methods. In these tests, the specimen is subjected to repeated stress
cycles (tension-tension), i.e., Pmin = 0
The experiment is repeated for various loads and a plot of crack length (a) versus the number
of cycles (N) is obtained.
For a single material, the plot of Fatigue crack length (mm) along y axis versus Elapsed
cycles in thousands is plotted as shown below. For many range of loads applied, we get many
crack growth curves. From the figure, for ΔP = 44.1 kN, the crack has grown much in a very
short number of cycles. For decreasing load ranges, the crack takes more time or more
number of cycles to grow.
Thus, crack growth is a function of cyclical load and crack length.
Sigmoidal Curve (Paris Law)

The most important advance in placing fatigue crack propagation in to a useful engineering
context was the realisation that crack length versus the number of cycles at different stress
levels can be expressed instead by a general plot of (da/dN) versus ΔK
Paris observed that the data from crack growth tests for a given material could be represented
as a single graph if we plot the graph in log-log scale with da/dN along the y axis and ΔK
along the x axis.
The advantage of this plot is that all the crack growth curves for a single material is fitted in
to a single log-log graph.
Obtaining an empirical relationship for the design of crack growth in region II (a linear
relationship is seen in region II between log (da/dN) and log(ΔK)):
log(da/dN) = m(log ΔK)+log(C)
i.e., (da/dN) = C(ΔK)m
For this empirical relationship, m is the slope of the line and C is the y axis intercept, when
the straight line is extended to ΔK = 1 MPa m1/2
The value of m is approximately 3 for steels and 3-4 for aluminium alloys.

Note 1: here ΔK = Kmax - Kmin

Kmax = α σmax (π a)0.5 and Kmin = α σmin (π a)0.5
So, ΔK = Kmax - Kmin = α Δσ (π a)0.5 , where Δσ = σmax - σmin

Note 2: Paris equation gives an important relation between fracture mechanics and fatigue.
The elastic SIF is applicable to fatigue crack growth, even for low strength high ductile
materials. This is because, K values required to cause fatigue crack growth are very low and
plastic zone sizes at the tip are small enough to permit an LEFM approach.

Region I and Region III:

Region I is bounded by a threshold value ΔKth below which there is no observable fatigue
crack growth. At stresses below ΔKth cracks behave as non-propagating cracks. At ΔKth crack
propagation rates are of the order of nm/cycle or less.

Region III is the region of accelerated crack growth, also called as catastrophic crack growth.
Here Kmax approaches Kc the fracture toughness of the material.

The effect of environment on crack growth is not considered in Paris Law.

Experimentation

Increase of Mean Stress

If Mean stress is increased, σmax is increased in this case. (stress ratio R = σmin / σmax = 0 for
this case as KI is not defined for compressive stresses. Load applied is pulsating tension). The
influence of R on Paris relationship is given as

When K is known for the component under relevant conditions of loading, the fatigue crack
growth life of the component can be obtained by integrating the Paris equation between the
limits of initial crack size and final crack size.
If P = 2,