Fatigue crack propagation in heterogeneous materials under remote cyclic loading

Abstract

A fatigue model for the analysis of crack propagation in heterogeneous materials is developed. The crack propagation is driven by cyclic loading and affected by the presence of neighboring inclusions which can have initial eigenstrains such as thermal strain and misfit strain. The static Semi-analytic solution obtained by Zhou et al. [2011a] is utilized to obtain the full stress filed and the stress intensity factors. In order to simulate the crack propagation in heterogeneous materials, the maximum hoop stress criterion is applied to predict crack propagation directions and the Paris-type law is employed to analyze the crack fatigue. Meanwhile, a zigzag crack path consisting of many small vertical and horizontal cracks models an arbitrary crack propagation path. The results show that material dissimilarity between the inclusion and matrix and the magnitude of cyclic loading could greatly influence the behaviors of crack propagation.