Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
An experimental method that is able to verify and to characterize the damage zone developed in front of crack tip under time-dependent fatigue crack propagation has been established. The crack growth rate was found to decrease exponentially in the damaged zone. Such a crack growth behavior can be described by a mathematical model which only requires three parameters: initial crack growth rate, (da/dN)q; normal crack growth rate (da/dN)o; and damaged zone size, D. An analyticat relationship has been developed to correlate the temperature and the time of sustained loading to the size of the induced damaged zone.