Author(s)

M.R. Parry, S. Syngellakis & I. Sinclair

Abstract

The incidence of roughness induced fatigue crack closure has been studied by finite element modelling. Results show an increasing effect of crack path angle on closure levels with the closure mechanism being strongly dependent on residual plastic strains in the wake rather than global shear displacements of the fracture surfaces. An analytical expression for the functional dependence of roughness induced closure has been produced which shows reasonable agreement with the finite element results. 1 Introduction The phenomenon of fatigue crack closure is widely considered to have a strong influence on fatigue crack growth. As such, directed alloy development, accurate life prediction and the implementation of economic inspection procedures in engineering structures are dependent upon the ability to quantify this effect [1, 2]. Many aluminium aerosp

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