CONTINUUM DAMAGE MECHANICS APPROACH TO FATIGUE LIFE PREDICTION OF METALLIC STRUCTURALCOMPONENTS

A. DE JESUS; O. SALOMON; S. OLLER; A. S. RIBEIRO; A. FERNANDEZ

Conferencia; Eighth International Fatigue Congress; 2002

In this paper a fatigue model, based on Continuum Damage Mechanics (CDM) is presented. This model uses an explicit definition of fatigue damage and a kinematic damage equation that relates fatigue damage directly with the number of cycles and the fatigue actions. This model was implemented in a non-linear finite element code using a J2 plasticity model with a non-linear kinematic hardening. This model was applied to predict the fatigue crack initiation at a welded plate-nozzle connection made of ASTM A517 steel. A reference to another model based on CDM is done. This second model takes the fatigue effects into account, implicitly, through a fatigue function, which affects the discontinuity thresholds ofthe inelastic constitutive models.