Micromechanical modeling of short fatigue cracks

This paper gives an overview over the micromechanical modeling approaches of short fatigue cracks. Until now many approaches have been presented in the literature, which differ significantly in their degree of complexity ranging from simple empirical or analytical models to complex models based on numerical solutions. In recent years different trends were observed: On the one hand detailed models are presented, which describe the propagation of a microstructurally short fatigue crack in a physically sound way based on discrete dislocations. However, their application is somewhat limited due to their complexity regarding the application in real microstructures. Thus, another trend is to develop models closely related to experimental research work to identify and focus on the main aspects of short fatigue crack growth.