Numerical Study of the Influence of the Crack Front Curvature in the Evolution of the Plastic Zone along the CT Specimen Thickness

摘要

This paper presents a numerical study of the influence of the load level and the crack front curvature on the plastic zone in the area close to the crack front. The aim of the work is to determine the influence of these parameters on fatigue crack closure. For this, a CT aluminum specimen has been modelled tri-dimensionally and several finite elements calculations have been made considering a large combination of the variables under consideration.