A Law of Fatigue Crack Propagation on the Basis of A Stochastic Model for Damage Accumulation

Abstract

The fatigue crack growth rate was investigated on the basis of a dislocation multiplication model for damage accumulation on which the fatigue life up to crack initiation was evaluated. A two-dimensional version of a stochastic model proposed by Tsurui and one of the authors (A. I.) was used in order to obtain the expression of the rate of fatigue crack growth, and a distribution function of the strength of material elements was derived by the use of the dislocation multiplication model. The results show that the fatigue crack growth rate is proportional to some power of the range of the stress intensity factor. The theoretical results were compared with the experimental data.