Fatigue crack growth assessment of corroded aluminum alloys

Abstract

The fatigue crack growth behaviour of pre-corroded aluminum alloy has been investigated analytically. For this purpose the fatigue crack growth LTSM-F model has been implemented and upgraded to account for the local material properties of the pre-corroded material ahead of the crack tip. In the model the local fracture behaviour at the crack tip of the corroded alloy is governed by the local fracture toughness of the material. The analytical results obtained show good correlation with fatigue crack growth experiments under irregular aircraft service spectra from the literature and demonstrate the significance to consider the degradation of local material properties of structural members including corroded areas. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009