This paper presents a kinetic theory of fatigue surface cracking processes that takes fully into account the crack coalescence phenomenon. We derive a balance equation for the crack density function in a one dimensional phase space similar to the Boltzmann equation for gases. The equation is solved numerically by a finite-difference method and the results are compared with a more classical Monte-Carlo simulation. The fatigue life probability distribution is calculated by assuming that failure occurs when cracks larger than a given critical size appear. [References: 32]
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