A Study on Effect of Residual Stress on Crack Growth of Aluminum Plate

One technique used to enhance the fatigue strength of a fastener hole is to introduce a compressive residual stress field around the hole. An applied load must overcome this residual stress before the crack can grow, thus leading to a longer fatigue life. The cold expansion of the holes is largely employed to obtain improvement in fatigue performance of structures with initially uncracked holes. In this research, considered is a fatigue crack growth from a hole under the influence of residual stress. The entire cold working processing- including hole expansion, elastic recovery, and finish reaming of two aluminum alloys 2024-T351 and 7075-T6 is simulated. This method of fatigue life prediction is compared with a superposition technique and experimental data. The crack closure level is computed from a finite element simulation and a fatigue life is predicted. The conclusions obtained here are beneficial to the understanding of the phenomenon of fatigue crack initiation and growth at the perimeter of cold worked holes.