The effect of weld residual stresses and their re-distribution with crack growth during fatigue under constant amplitude loading

C. D.M. Liljedahl, O. Zanellato, M. E. Fitzpatrick, J. Lin, L. Edwards

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

76 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this work the evolution of the residual stresses in a MIG-welded 2024-T3 aluminium alloy M(T) specimen during in situ fatigue crack growth at constant load amplitude has been measured with neutron diffraction. The plastic relaxation and plasticity-induced residual stresses associated with the fatigue loading were found to be small compared with the stresses arising due to elastic re-distribution of the initial residual stress field. The elastic re-distribution was modelled with a finite element simulation and a good correlation between the experimentally-determined and the modelled stresses was found. A significant mean stress effect on the fatigue crack growth rate was seen and this was also accurately predicted using the measured initial residual stresses.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)735-743
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Fatigue
Volume32
Issue number4
Early online date23 Oct 2009
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2010
Externally publishedYes

Funding

CDML is grateful for financial support to Airbus UK, Alcoa and Cytec. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of instrument scientist Dr D.J. Hughes at the SALSA diffractometer of the Institute Laue Langevin; and Mr P. Ledgard at Materials Engineering, The Open University for manufacturing of the fatigue grips used. MEF is supported by a grant through The Open University from the Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust, an independent charity working to achieve advances in transportation, science, engineering and technology education, training and research worldwide for the benefit of all.

Keywords

  • Fatigue
  • Finite element analysis
  • Neutron diffraction
  • Residual stresses
  • Welding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Modelling and Simulation
  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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