Computer modeling the fatigue crack growth rate behavior of metals in corrosive environments. Final report

The emphasis of the second phase of this research project has been to develop a single computer program that would establish the foundation to incorporate deleterious environmental effects on fatigue crack propagation laws into NASA FLAGRO. The program was the result of team research projects conducted by three undergraduates in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University of Virginia. Known methods to interpolate and potentially extrapolate environmental fatigue crack propagation (FCP) data were emphasized, including linear superposition and empirical curve-fitting descriptions of fatigue crack growth rate (da/dN) versus applied or effective stress intensity range (delta K). This program contains elements that were extracted from the NASA FLAGRO source code, particularly library data on material fatigue and fracture properties, as well as the Forman equations for calculations on fatigue crack growth rate versus stress intensity relationships, including the effect of crack closure. The program was written in Fortran and is executed by entering MENU from the DOS prompt on an IBM-compatible personal computer. The user can then select one of the following three options that resulted from each undergraduate project. The projects are as follows: Digitization of Crack Growth Rate Data, Interpolation Modeling of Environmental FCP Data, and Linearmore » Superposition Modeling of Environmental FCP Data. Example calculations demonstrating each element of the program are presented in several appendices to this report.« less