Numerical analysis of compliance and fatigue life of the CCC specimen

Abstract

This study presents the numerical evaluation of the compliance in the CCC specimen aiming to assess the crack length inside the specimen. The numerical model considered the elastoplastic behaviour of the specimen, which is modelled using axisymmetric finite elements. The results shown that the propagation of the crack yields a nonlinear increase of the compliance. Nevertheless, variation of the compliance is very small for small values of crack radius. Considering a loading sequence composed by four load blocks of constant amplitude, the fatigue crack growth was predicted both using the Paris law and the numerical model. Both predictions agree but only the numerical simulation is able to capture the crack retardation between load blocks