Fatigue of Cold Expanded Open Hole Coupons with Pre-Existing Cracks

Fastener holes have a high stress concentration at the edge of the hole and are primary sources of fatigue crack initiation, resulting in widespread fatigue damage leading to fatigue failures in airframe structures. The split-sleeve cold expansion (SsCx) technology is a simple and cost-effective way to improve the fatigue resistance of fastener holes by the introduction of compressive residual stresses around the holes. An investigation was carried out by DSTO to quantify the effectiveness of this technology, in terms of fatigue life improvement factors on a typical airframe aluminium alloy. Open hole (zero load transfer) coupons were tested to failure in non-cold expanded and cold expanded conditions. Coupons were also pre-cracked to specified crack lengths at the open hole, and cold expanded or left non-cold expanded, and tested to failure. This paper will present the results of the initial phases of the experimental program, involving constant amplitude fatigue loading of open hole coupons with and without cracks. The fatigue life improvement achieved by the use of hole cold expansion technology will be presented.