Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Propagation of long fatigue cracks in thin-sheet wrought aluminium alloys at constant stress ratio and constant stress amplitude (DK range from about 10 MPa m1/2 to well below instability) is considered. The crack growth rates of aluminium alloys with strength-controlling precipitates that cannot be sheared by dislocations nearly coincide at a particular value of DK and increasingly diverge for increasing values of DK. The characteristic quantities specified by the point to which the fatigue crack growth curves converge are related to the shear modulus and the slip band spacing.