Fatigue crack growth retardation assessment of 2024-T3 and 6061-T6 aluminium specimens

A fatigue crack growth retardation model is developed. It considers a strip plastic zone with material hardening effect which is taken as one of the basic mechanisms controlling fatigue crack growth. Crack growth is treated incrementally and corresponds to the failure of material elements ahead of an existing crack after a certain critical number of low cycle fatigue. Computed curves are correlated to test data obtained from the 2024-T3 and 6061-T6 aluminium specimens. Deviations from test data increase with increasing crack length.