Study on the surface crack growth behavior in 14MnNbq bridge steel

Three-dimensional crack closure correction methods are investigated in this paper. The fatigue crack growth tests of surface cracks in 14MnNbq steel for bridge plate subjected to tensile and bending loadings are systematically conducted. The experimentally measured fatigue crack growth rates of surface cracks are compared with those of through-thickness cracks in detail. It is found that the crack growth rates of surface cracks are lower than those of through-thickness cracks. In order to correct their differences in fatigue crack growth rates, a dimensionless crack closure correction model is proposed. Although this correction model is determined only by the experimental data of surface cracks under tensile loading with a constant ratio R = 0.05, it can correlate the surface crack growth rates with reasonable accuracy under tensile and bending loadings with various stress ratios ranging from 0 to 0.5. Furthermore, predictions of fatigue life and crack aspect ratio for surface cracks are discussed, and the predicted results are also compared with those obtained from other prediction approaches. Comparison results show that the proposed crack closure correction model gives better prediction of fatigue life than other models.