Increased traffic speeds and axle loads on modern railways enhance rail track degradation. To eliminate track failure due to rail defects, a condition monitoring system requires methods for the early detection of defects which grow in service. Acoustic emission (AE) monitoring is the only non-destructive technique which might be applied online to study the defect growth under traffic loading. H...

The addition of liquid-filled urea-formaldehyde (UF) microcapsules to an epoxy matrix leads to significant reduction in fatigue crack growth rate and corresponding increase in fatigue life. Mode-I fatigue crack propagation is measured using a tapered doublecantilever beam (TDCB) specimen for a range of microcapsule concentrations and sizes: 0, 5, 10, and 20% by weight and 50, 180, and 460 lm di...

A software tool for automated crack onset and growth simulation based on the eXtended Finite Element Method (X-FEM) is developed. This XFA tool for the first time is able to simulate arbitrary crack growth or composite delamination without remeshing. The automated tool is integrated with Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/CAE via the customization interfaces. It seamlessly works with the Commercial, Of...

It is well known that the mechanical properties of materials depend of the rolling direction, which means that the direction of specimen cutting affect the obtained values. This feature also exists in the welded joint, where the anisotropy is caused by direction of the deposit welded layers. One high-carbon steel is surface welded by flux-cored wire and specimens were cut in order to determine ...

Article history: Received 5 July 2012 Received in revised form 25 September 2012 Accepted 29 September 2012 The fatigue crack growth of the nickel-based superalloy Haynes 230 was investigated at room temperature and 900 °C using digital image correlation (DIC). As expected, the crack growth rates at high temperature were much faster than at room temperature. However, the crack closure levels, w...

Fatigue failure of strucutres is normally caused by cracks that extend beyond a safe size. Flaws are present to some extend in all structural parts, either as a result of manufacturing fabrication defects or damage in service. Crack growth is a complex phenomenon to model and simplifications are assumed. In recent years, there has been an increasing realisation that advanced computational metho...

nowadays, textile and woven fabric composites are taken into consideration forapplications in high mechanical properties and every in-plane direction. however, developments inmodelling and characterisation of the fabric reinforced composite materials are considered more inthe effects of element types used in the mesh generation of the crack tip. the type of elementselected for the crack tip, a ...

This paper reviews the capabilities of a plasticity-induced crack-closure model to predict fatigue lives of metallic materials using “small-crack theory” for various materials and loading conditions. Crack tip constraint factors, to account for three-dimensional stateof-stress effects, were selected to correlate large-crack growth rate data as a function of the effective-stress-intensity factor...

Continuum approaches to fracture regard crack initiation and growth as the ultimate consequences of a gradual, local loss of material integrity. The material models which are traditionally used to describe the degradation process, however, may predict premature crack initiation and instantaneous, perfectly brittle crack growth. This nonphysical response is caused by localisation instabilities d...

The natural initiation and growth of short cracks in Inconel 718 U-notch specimens has been studied at 600C in air. U notches were introduced through broaching, and hardness traces and optical microscopy on cross sections through the U notch broaching showed that the broaching process had introduced a deformed, work hardened layer. Fatigue tests were conducted under load control using a 1-1-1-1...