The effect of distance and angle of the additional holes on the fatigue life of a single hole specimen containing hole edge cracks

A series of finite element models were conducted in ASTM- A395 elastic– perfectly plastic ductile cast iron to investigate the effect of additional holes on the fatigue behavior of single hole specimens containing hole edge cracks. The Abaqus finite element package was used to modeling. The Abaqus data file for the uncracked mesh was read and processed by Zencrack fracture mechanics code. The energy release rate was used to drive crack growth calculations. This paper describes how the improvement of fatigue life of a basic specimen by variations in distance and angle between the basic single hole and the additional holes. Then it was discussed how the reduction of stress concentration around the basic single hole affected the fatigue life of the single hole specimens. The results show that fatigue life and stress concentration factor at the edge of a base hole was affected by variations in distance and angle of the additional holes. Consecutively, the results from the numerical predictions are compared with the experimental data.