Corrosion fatigue behavior of fastening hole structure and virtual crack propagation tests

Abstract

The fatigue crack propagation behavior of the LY12CZ aluminum alloy fastener involving a central hole in air or in 3.5wt% NaCl solution was investigated. The experimental results indicated that the corrosion fatigue crack growth rate decreased with the increasing loading frequency, and in a corrosive environment, the crack growth rate was slightly larger than that in air. Based on the experimental results, the virtual corrosion fatigue crack propagation tests were investigated and the stochastic process method and the AFGROW simulation method were presented. The normal process and lognormal process were considered for the stochastic process method based on the numerically fitted Paris equation. The distribution of crack size and the corresponding probabilistic model of crack length distribution for a given number of cycles can be found by integrating the stochastic process over time. Using the AFGROW software, the virtual simulation was carried out to analyze the corrosion fatigue crack growth behavior and the predicted crack growth curve was in good agreement with the experimental results.