A comparison between Japanese and French A16 defect assessment procedures for fatigue crack growth Original Research Article

This paper presents the results of a benchmark on fatigue crack growth evaluation for plates subjected to cyclic bending loads. The simplified fatigue crack growth evaluation methods of JNC in Japan and A16 procedures proposed by CEA in France are presented. The methods, based on the reference stress approach, are compared with each other. They are found to differ in estimating crack closure, in the expression used for the reference stress solution and in the formulations used to take plasticity into account. The methods are then employed to predict the fatigue crack growth behavior observed experimentally. At R=0.1, the methods provide predictions of crack growth in good agreement with the experimental data. At R=−1.0, significant differences are observed between the predictions. The discrepancies are mainly due to the crack closure effect used to calculate the effective SIF range.