Influence of net section damage on creep crack growth

Abstract
Fracture mechanics concepts for describing creep crack growth in terms of ductility exhaustion in a process zone at the crack tip are reviewed and extended to include damage accumulation in the ligament ahead of a crack. Applications are considered which show that net section damage has most influence for short cracks and plane stress conditions where significant damage can develop in the uncracked ligament. It is shown that, under plane strain loading, insufficient ligament damage occurs during the crack growth phase for it to have an appreciable effect on failure times. A method is also presented for accounting for the influence of an incubation period prior to the onset of cracking and for making residual life estimates.

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