The use of residuals in statistical modeling for fatigue-crack growth under constant amplitude loading

Various models have been proposed over the years to fit crack growth data. Many papers have appeared in which one or more models are mooted and fitted, and various assessments made of the quality of the fit. At the basic level the data are plotted, together with the fitted curve, to show agreement of experimental and predicted values. In this paper we suggest that it can be useful and informative to go one step further, examining the residuals, i.e., the differences between the experimental and predicted values. We draw attention to certain statistical methods for such critical assessment and show by example that this can reveal deficiencies in fit not otherwise obvious. In this way suitable modifications to the model can be suggested. Additional plots of estimated parameters are also shown to be informative about models