An assessment of the effects of microstructure on room temperature fatigue threshold and crack propagation behaviour has been carried out on microstructural variants of U720Li, i.e. as-received U720Li, U720Li-LG (large grain variant) and U720Li-LP (large intragranular coherent γ′ variant). Fatigue tests were carried out at room temperature using a 20Hz sinusoidal cycling waveform at an Rratio=0...

In this paper, the stress intensity factor (SIF) variations along an arbitrarily developing crack front, the non-planar fatigue-crack growth patterns, and the fatigue life of a round bar with an initially straight-fronted surface crack, are studied by employing the 3D symmetric Galerkin boundary element method-finite element method (SGBEM-FEM) alternating method. Different loading cases, involv...

Initial cracks occur in high strength concrete sleepers for various reasons, such as shrinkage and wrong curing and long lifetime of over 50 years of sleepers. These cracks may lead to complete failure of the structure. In order to more accurately design the sleepers, fracture mechanics (not strength of materials) should be incorporated. In order to achieve this purpose, it is important to fore...

In this paper, the fatigue and fracture properties of bovine dentin are evaluated using in vitro experimental analyses. Double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens were prepared from bovine maxillary molars and subjected to zeroto-tension cyclic loads. The fatigue crack growth rate was evaluated as a function of the dentin tubule orientation using the Paris law. Wedge-loaded DCB specimens were also ...

In this paper, and its companion Part 2 [Dong and Atluri (2013b)], the Symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method (SGBEM), and the SGBEMFEM alternating/coupling methods, are compared with the recently popularized Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM), for analyzing fracture and fatigue crack propagation in complex structural geometries. The historical development, and the theoretical/algorithmi...

Fatigue crack growth rate depends not only on the load amplitude, but also on the morphology of crack path. The strain energy density theory has the ability to analyze crack growth rate. A strain energy density crack growth model is proposed. It can predict the lifetime of fatigue crack growth for mixed mode cracks while an equation for mode I crack is also obtained. The validity of the model i...

Understanding the fatigue crack growth phenomenon in railheads requires a study of driving forces such as the crack tip opening and sliding displacements, under repeated rolling contact. Finite element simulations, allowing elastic-plastic deformation, and mixed-mode crack growth laws were utilized to demonstrate that the fatigue crack growth rates display a minimum after a finite amount of cra...

This article presents a study of fatigue-crack propagation behavior in Nitinol, a 50Ni-50Ti (at. pct) superelastic/shape-memory alloy, with particular emphasis on the effect of the stress-induced martensitic transformation on crack-growth resistance. Specifically, fatigue-crack growth was characterized in stable austenite (at 120 8C), superelastic austenite (at 37 8C), and martensite (at 265 8C...

In-phase TMF crack growth testing with different lengths of the hold time at the maximum temperature of 550C has been conducted on Inconel 718 specimens. Focus has been on establishing a method for TMF crack growth testing and investigating the effect of high temperature hold times on the TMF crack growth of the material. The tests are compared to isothermal crack propagation tests and show go...