Multi-partner benchmark experiment of fatigue crack growth measurements

Raphaël Langlois (1) , Raphaël Cusset (2) , Jerome Hosdez (3) , Vincent Bonnand (4) , Benoît Blaysat (5) , Léa Menut-Tournadre (6) , Jan Neggers (7) , Michel Coret (1) , Joseph Henry (6) , Véronique Doquet (8) , Michel Grediac (5) , Vincent Chiaruttini (4) , Martin Poncelet (7) , Henry Proudhon (2) , Nathalie Limodin (3) , Julien Réthoré (1)

1 GeM - Institut de Recherche en Génie Civil et Mécanique
2 CDM - Centre des Matériaux
3 LaMcube - Laboratoire de Mécanique, Multiphysique, Multiéchelle - UMR 9013
4 DMAS, ONERA, Université Paris Saclay [Châtillon]
5 IP - Institut Pascal
6 Safran Aircraft Engines
7 LMT - Laboratoire de mécanique et technologie
8 LMS - Laboratoire de Mécanique des Solides

The design of reliable structures and the estimation of the residual fatigue life of industrial parts containing flaws or cracks rely on our ability to predict the propagation of fatigue cracks. Whereas in industrial component cracks might have a complex path due to geometry and loading, lab experiments used for identifying crack propagation law are often in pure mode I. The paper presents a synthesis of an experimental benchmark performed in the context of a French national research network. A sample has been designed to produce mixed-mode crack propagation and variation of small scale yielding conditions. Two geometries and two maximum load levels are defined for the two tested materials: a stainless steel and an aluminum alloy. Around ten participants performed experiments using their usual instrumentation. Among the eight possible parameter sets, three are selected for which detailed results are presented. A satisfying overall agreement is obtained. But, some discrepancies are evidenced due either to limitations of the instrumentation or simply because from one lab to the other the applied load is not exactly the same. It is thus concluded that one of the most important issue is boundary conditions, which is confirmed by numerical simulations.

Mots clés: Fatigue crack growth; Stress intensity factors; Digital Image Correlation

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Chimie; Physique [physics]

Raphaël Langlois, Raphaël Cusset, Jerome Hosdez, Vincent Bonnand, Benoît Blaysat, et al.. Multi-partner benchmark experiment of fatigue crack growth measurements. Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 2020, 235, ⟨10.1016/j.engfracmech.2020.107157⟩. ⟨hal-02877391⟩