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Effect of load amplitude change on the fatigue life of cracked Al plate repaired
with composite patch
A. Albedah, Sohail M.A. Khan, F. Benyahia, B. Bachir Bouiadjra
PII:
DOI:
Reference:
S0142-1123(16)30007-X
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2016.03.002
JIJF 3881
To appear in:
Received Date:
Revised Date:
Accepted Date:
7 November 2015
26 February 2016
1 March 2016
Please cite this article as: Albedah, A., Khan, S.M.A., Benyahia, F., Bachir Bouiadjra, B., Effect of load amplitude
change on the fatigue life of cracked Al plate repaired with composite patch, International Journal of Fatigue (2016),
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2016.03.002
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Effect of load amplitude change on the fatigue life of cracked Al plate repaired with
composite patch
A. Albedaha*, Sohail M. A. Khana, F. Benyahia a, B. Bachir Bouiadjra b, a
b LMPM,
aMechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sidi Bel Abbes, BP 89, Cit Ben Mhidi, Sidi Bel Abbes 22000, Algeria
*corresponding author: Tel. +966114677111, albedah@ksu.edu.sa
Abstract
In this study, the fatigue behavior of aluminum alloy 2024T3 V-notched specimens repaired
with composite patch under block loading was analyzed experimentally. Two loading blocks
were applied: increasing and decreasing at two stress ratio: R=0 and R=0.1. Failed samples
were examined under scanning electron microscope at different magnifications to analyze
their fractured surfaces. The obtained results show that under increasing blocks, the crack
growth is accelerated for both repaired and un-repaired specimens. This is attributed to the
increase of the loading amplitude in the second block. A retardation effect was observed for
decreasing blocks loading in unrepaired specimens. However, this retardation effect is
attenuated by the presence of the patch which lead to lower fatigue life for repaired
specimens.
Key words: Bonded composite repair, block loading, Retardation effect, Fatigue life.
1. Introduction
Aged aircraft structure may contain fatigue cracks resulting from their long service. Fatigue
loads, of constant and variable cyclic load amplitudes, are the major contributors to the
service induced damages in the aerospace structures. Bonded composite patches have been
successfully used to repair the damaged structures and it is structurally very efficient, can be
applied rapidly and are cost effective [1-3]. The technology involves adhesively bonding
patches of advanced fiber composite materials to repair damaged aircraft structures and
to prevent stress corrosion cracking. Once repaired using bonded composite patch, there is no
guarantee that the structure continue being subjected to the same loading amplitudes. Several
studies of unrepaired cracks [4, 5] show the significant effect of the load history on the fatigue
life of metallic structures. Tensile and compressive overload cycles of near yield magnitude
have been shown to accelerate crack growth [6, 7] while crack retardation has been observed
on long cracks following tensile overloads that were well below the yield strength[7].
Experiments composed of two constant amplitude loading blocks changing from a low to a
higher stress level (LH block) or vice versa (HL block) are usually employed to study the
block loading in materials. However the results obtained from these experiments are not
consistent, showing a greater damaging effect due to the LH blocks and retardation effect
due to H-L blocks, depending on the material and loading parameters [4, 8]. This is generally
explained by the size of the plastic zone created at the crack tip as well as by the residual
stresses and crack branching in other cases.
In the case of repaired cracks, the interaction of the load change with the stress bridging and
redistribution, caused by the composite patch, may have a considerable impact on the crack
repair.
Several works have been published on the effect of variable amplitude loading, cycle mix and
the variation in mean stress on the adhesively-bonded joints [9-11], the effect of overloads
and loading sequence on adhesively bonded double-lap joints [12-14] .
Khan et al [15] analyzed the fatigue life of Al 7075-T6 cracked specimens repaired with
adhesively bonded composite patches for different load ratios and compared with that of
unrepaired specimen under the same cyclic block loading for two different sequences
(increasing and decreasing amplitude). They showed that the patch repair efficiency is not
significant for increasing blocks of loading, whereas for decreasing blocks of loading, the
improvement is relatively noticeable. The combination of the fiber bridging and the
retardations effect leads to the significant improvement of the fatigue life for the repaired
structures.
The repair performance of cracked aluminum plates using bonded composite patches can be
evaluated by monitoring, among others, the repaired crack growth under different loads. It has
been shown in previous studies [16-18] that the smaller the initial size of the repaired crack
the higher is the efficiency of the patch repair. However, to the knowledge of the authors,
there is no information in the literature on the behavior of a patch repair relating the load
amplitude leading to the crack generation and that applied after the repair.
Behavior of cracks repaired with bonded composite patch under variable amplitude loading is
more complex than under constant amplitude loading [19]. To understand the more realistic
phenomenon which occur during the aircraft services such as the transient crack closure and
the retardation effects associated with overloads, it is necessary to study the bonded
composite repair under representative flight load spectra. The first case of such repair was
executed on the wing skin of RAAF Mirage III aircraft [20], subjected to an operational flight
load spectra and the other major case was composite repair on USAF C-141 aircraft [21]. The
repair has been applied to over 150 wings in service and over 3 years of operational history
has been observed during the investigation. Both cases have been reported to be successful.
The finite element method was also carried out during the repair of RAAF Mirage III aircraft.
It has been used to design several complex repair schemes, such as the repair of fatigue cracks
in the lower skin of Mirage aircraft and cracks on the upper surface of the wing pivot fitting
of FlllC aircraft in service with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) [26]. Baker reported
that many patch repairs of the Royal Australian Air Force have been in service for longer than
20 years without durability issues arising from environmental or fatigue damage [22].
Raizenne et al [23] conducted series of fatigue tests on repaired aircraft panels using a
clipped FALSTAFF spectrum in which the negative loading has been removed. Poole [25]
reported the beneficial effect of single side patch repair on thin aluminum sheets and
suggested that the effect of variable amplitude loading spectra on patch debonding should be
studied in terms of patch efficiency. He also suggested that there is a clear requirement for a
model to predict debonding, and patch efficiency under a wide range of loading spectra.
Baker [27] conducted fatigue test on wing skin of an Australian Defense Force F-111C
aircraft repaired with an adhesively bonded boron/epoxy fiber composite patch. During these
tests, the patch was successful in preventing growth of the crack for around a further 9000
simulated flying hours.
In the work done by Walker and Rose [28], safety critical bonded composite repair to the outer
lower wing skin of an F-111 aircraft has been fully validated and substantiated. The first wing
to be repaired exceeded 665.9h of actual operational usage and a further 8074.4 h in a fullscale wing fatigue test [28].
In this study, we aim to evaluate experimentally the effect of the load amplitude change priorpost the repair on its efficiency. Two blocks of constants maximum loading set-ups are
considered in this study: Low-High (7kN-12kN) and High-Low (12kN-7kN). One of the two
loading blocks is responsible to creating and propagating a crack, from a notched specimen,
to a length of 3 millimeters representing the initial detected crack size to be repaired. After
repair, the specimen is subjected to the second block where the maximum load is changed and
the crack growth is monitored until failure. Similar tests are conducted but without patch for
the purpose of comparison. Previously published results [29] are used to highlight the material
effect on the performance of the composite patch repair through the two different load levels.
2. Experimental setup
2.1 Chemical characterization of the material
The material used in this study was in the form of thin plates. Few samples of the material
was taken and chemically analyzed on SEM equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray analyzer
(EDS) to confirm the composition and properties of Al 2024 tempered at T3. The chemical
composition of the aluminum alloy (Al 2024-T3) is given in Table 1.
crack. Once the desired crack length is reached, the sample was unloaded and taken for
surface preparation followed by bonding the composite patch.
The use of double sided symmetric patch is more efficient and would annul the bending
moment due the shift of the neutral axis for single sided patch, but the main disadvantage of
the double sided patch is the difficulty to monitor the crack propagation. To minimize the
bending effect for single sided patch, we have carefully chosen the stiffness ratio between the
cracked plate and the composite patch. This ratio is defined by :
.
.
ep :: is the plate
2.4 Adhesive
The surface of SENT specimens was prepared according to Bell Process Specification method
[34]. The pre-cracked specimens were repaired with the composite patches bonded to the
specimens using the bi-components Permabond ET515 adhesive such that the lay-up principal
direction is perpendicular to the loading direction, as shown in Figure 2. The specimens were
cleaned using acetone as there were no indents or scratches on the specimen and it was
received in mirror polished condition. After cleaning the specimen, Permabond ET515A, the
epoxy resin, is mixed with Permabond ET515B, the polyamine hardener, in 1:1 ratio and the
mixture is applied to pre-cracked area and the composite patch was bonded to it as shown in
Figure 2. Permabond ET515 is cured without any external heat and thus, prevents the
galvanization between the composite and the metal and, hence, avoids the formation of
thermal residual stresses. The assembly of aluminum specimen and patch (Figure 2) was
allowed to cure under pressure for 72 hours, without any heat, to obtain the full handling
strength.
Two cyclic block-loading sequences (increasing and decreasing), as shown in Figure 4, were
applied to each specimen in two sequences. The tests were performed using the first loading
block of constant maximum load, low or high (L or H, 7 kN or 12 kN) until the crack reached
3 mm length, then the second maximum loading block , high or low, (H or L, 12kN or 7kN) is
applied and maintained until fracture. For the repaired specimens, the same procedure is used
except that the composite patch is bonded after the crack length (a) reaches 3 mm. Two stress
ratios(R=Fmin/Fmax), R=0 and R=0.1 were used for the two loading cases. The details of
loading case, patch configurations and materials used are summarized in Table 2.
We note that tests on one sided patch repairs without bending effect being constrained to have
little effect, is similar to that performed in [35]. This was done even though the resultant test
program is believed to result in localized bending that is unrepresentative of what will happen
in an operational aircraft.
related to the combined effect of patching and load change. These results are also compared
with the unrepaired case as a reference and known configuration. Also, we studied the effect
of patch repair under constant load and presented the result in the following sections.
3.1 Combined effect of patch repair and load increase on the crack growth
Figure 5 presents the fatigue life response (crack length vs. cycle number) of Al 2024-T3
specimen, pre-cracked to a length of 3 mm, under amplitude loading (L= 7 kN) then subjected
to a stepped load increase (H= 12 kN) up to failure. The fatigue tests were conducted for two
stress ratios R=0 and R=0.1 applied to both fatigue loading blocks (L and H).The results
shown in the Figure 5 indicate that the fatigue life of repaired specimens was improved for
both stress ratios. However, the rates of life improvements, in number of cycles to failure, are
fairly low and are limited to about 17% for R=0 and to 21% for R=0.1. In a previous study
[36],the authors showed that for specimens, with semi-circular notches, reinforced with a
composite patch and subjected to constant amplitude loading of 7 kNat a stress ratio of 0.1,
the fatigue life increases sixteen times. The poor fatigue life improvement obtained for the
repaired specimen, in our study, is mainly dominated by the load jump from 7kN to 12 kN
which accelerated the crack growth rate and almost eliminated the patch strength effect in
carrying a part of the load transferred throughout the adhesive layer. In addition, the increase
of the fatigue loading amplitude stimulates the adhesive partial or total disbond, which can
considerably reduce the overall fatigue life of the repaired structure. It is important to mention
that, the usage of V-notch specimens increases the crack growth rate and naturally reduces the
repair efficiency. The V-notch choice for this study was motivated by the need of a fast initial
crack initiation and a focus on the crack propagation in mode I. The results shown in Figure 5
are also consistent with several studies highlighting an increase of the fatigue life with the
stress ratio [5, 6, 15, 28]. However, in our case, the stress ratio has a lower effect, on the
10
fatigue life, than that obtained under constant amplitude loading. Figure 6 presents the fatigue
life of Al 2024-T3 specimens subjected to constant block loading at two different load levels
of 7kN and 12 kN, compared with stepped load increase scenario (L-H). The figure shows
that fatigue life is increased to 1.8 and 2.25 times by reinforcement of patch under constant
amplitude loading of 7 kN and 12 kN, respectively. The change in fatigue life after the
reinforcement of patch is compared and presented in Table 3. Seo and Lee [17]reported that,
for a test performed on CCT specimen at R=0.1, fatigue life ratio was about 3.5 times the
baseline specimen.
The Figure 7 presents the variation of the crack growth rate (da/dN) as a function of the crack
length (a) for repaired and unrepaired samples under constant and block loading and for the
two stress ratios R=0 and R=0.1. This figure shows that before patching (at a = 3 mm), the
crack growth rate does not exceed the value of 3.10 -7 mm/cycle. The growth rate increases
significantly when the fatigue load amplitude jumps from 7kN to 12 kN for R=0 and R=0.1
and for both configurations; patched and unpatched. The growth rate, which is practically
linear with the crack length, indicates that the fast load increase has almost abolished the
benefits of the patch repair which has compensated for the extra load to keep the fatigue life
similar to the unpatched case totally loaded with 7kN up to failure.
3.2 Combined effect of patch repair and load reduction on the crack growth
Figure 8 presents the fatigue life response of repaired and unrepaired specimens subjected to
stepped load reduction scenario (H-L)for R=0 and R=0.1. At a first glance, a significant
retardation effect of the crack growth for both repaired and unrepaired specimens is observed.
This is manifested by a substantially stopping of the crack during a significant number of
cycles. Some researchers attributed the primary cause of retardation to a residual plastic zone
11
ahead of the crack tip though to be proportional to the load amplitude[37, 38]. Other causes
may be crack tip blunting, crack branching, plasticity induced closure and roughness induced
closure [9]. Figure 8 shows an unexpected behavior; the fatigue lives of unrepaired specimens
are higher than those of repaired ones for both R=0 and R=0.1. In other words, the fatigue life
is reduced by the composite patch by 153392 cycles for R=0.1 and 113800 cycles for R=0.
Those results indicate that the composite patch caused a speedup of the crack growth rate for
the experimented H-L (12-7 kN) loading scenario. This has decreased the repaired specimen
fatigue life rather than improving it. According to several studies, available in the literature,
on the overload effects on crack growth retardation, this result can be explained by the fact
that a larger plastic zone is created by the firstly applied high load (12 kN) causing a
considerable reduction of the crack growth rate for the unpatched specimen when subjected to
the secondly applied lower load (7 kN).The plastic zone increases the resistance to the crack
propagation which provokes the observed retardation effect. For repaired specimens a
bridging effect takes place. The stress transfer between the cracked plate and the composite
patch reduces the plastic strain in the aluminum plate and consequently the extent of the
plastic zone around the crack tip is also reduced. This reduction weakens the retardation
phenomenon of the crack growth causing a significant reduction of the fatigue life of the
repaired specimen compared to the unrepaired one. The fatigue life summary is shown in
Table 3. It can be observed that the fatigue life is increased after the reinforcement of patch in
all cases except under stepped load reduction case of Al 2024-T3.
Figure 9 presents the variation of the fatigue crack growth rate (da/dN) as function of the
crack length (a) for repaired and unrepaired specimens subjected to step decreased loading
(H-L). Because of the high amplitude of loading (12 KN), the fatigue crack growth rate is
high for a crack length less than 3 mm(before patching). This rate drops noticeably when the
12
loading amplitude is reduced to 7kN for both repaired and unrepaired specimens. The crack
growth rate increases slowly as the crack length increases but at a rate 10 times lower
compared to the case of step increased loading (Figure 7) .
The results of load reduction case are compared with constant amplitude loading as shown in
Figure 10. The figure indicates that fatigue life is improved by reinforcement of patch under
constant amplitude loading, whereas in case of load reduction case, it is the reversed. The
improvement in the fatigue life is about 1.8 and 2.25 folds compared to baseline specimen at
constant amplitude loading of 7 kN and 12 kN, respectively, at a stress ratio of 0.1.
We have also conducted other tests to evaluate the impact of the first load amplitude on the
overall specimen fatigue life. Four load amplitudes were used: 9,10, 11 and 12 kN. After
patch repair the load amplitude was maintained to 7 kN. The fatigue life is shorter, see Figure
11, for smaller pre-patch load amplitude. This is because the plastic zone, produced by higher
pre-patch load amplitude, ahead of the crack front is reduced by the presence of the patch.
This reduction can attenuate the retardation effect of the crack growth and consequently, the
role of a bonded patch composites repair can be inversed.
To confirm the precedent results and conclusions, we have compared the fatigue crack growth
of aluminum alloys 2024-T3 (ductile) specimens with 7075-T6 (brittle) and presented the
comparison in Figure 12-16. The results of Al 7075-T6 were taken from our precedent work
(see Khan et al. [15]). The comparison was done for repaired and un-repaired samples
subjected to step reduced fatigue loading (H-L) with a stress ratio of 0.1 as shown in Figure
14. The retardation effect is clearly more substantial for Al 2024-T3 samples compared to
those of Al 7075. This confirms that the higher ductility of Al 2024, compared to that of Al
13
7075, as shown in Figure 15, is responsible for the reversed patch effect. In fact, the fatigue
life of Al 7075 specimens is improved by the composite patch while that of Al 2024
specimens is drastically reduced by the same patch.
Molent et al [39] studied fatigue crack growth data from a large number of fatigue tests on
different military aircraft types. The data analyzed, generally, include the primary crack(s)
leading to failure of the test article. They showed that, an exponential model fits well the
crack growth history data regardless of the design standard used in designing the airframe and
the metallic material used in its construction. Therefore, it is important to consider fatigue
tests with real loading spectrum, which will be done in future works.
fracture by formation of dimples are observed, indicating a transition from brittle to ductile
fracture.
Figure 19 shows the fracture surface of an unrepaired Al 2024-T3 specimen under step
increasing loading. The SEM observation was taken at 35 mm from the notch tip and it shows
exclusively a ductile fracture by dimples growth. This is because as the load and crack length
increase the plastic strain around the crack tip becomes higher which induce a ductile fracture.
However, at the same distance from the notch tip, Figure 20 shows the presence of dimple and
cleavage fracture for repaired specimens. This means that the stress level is lower for the
repaired case because of the stress transfer from the repaired plate toward the composite
patch.
Figure 21 presents SEM observation, at 35 mm from the notch tip, of a fractured surface of an
unrepaired specimen subjected to step decreasing fatigue load. This figure shows a ductile
fracture with higher dimple. The plasticity strains in this case are significant which explain the
retardation effect. The same behavior can be observed for the equivalent repaired specimen
(Figure 22) but the dimples are smaller for this case. The plasticity is reduced by the bridging
effect of the composite patch and consequently the crack retardation is diminished by the
patch repair.
4. Conclusion
In this work, we have studied the effect of the load amplitude change pre and post bonded
patch repair on the fatigue of life cracked Al 2024 specimen.
15
We found that an increase of the fatigue load amplitude after a patch repair overcomes most
of its crack retardation for both Al 2024 T3 and Al 7075 T6 materials. Nonetheless, a
decrease of the fatigue load amplitude after the patch repair stops the crack growth for a
considerable number of cycles then induces a lower crack growth than the unpatched case for
Al 7075 T6 material.
A crack generated in Al 2014 T3 material under a given fatigue load amplitude has grown
faster after a bonded patch repair once subjected to lower cyclic amplitude loading. In this
case, the patch repair plays an adverse role and shorten the structure residual life.
The main explanation of the crack growth acceleration under combined patching and load
amplitude reduction for the Al 2024 T3 is attributed to the patch bridging effect of the plastic
zone at the crack tip. The effect of plastic zone causing crack growth retardation is thus
nullified causing the obtained crack growth acceleration.
The reduction of the load amplitude difference between the load block, pre and post patching
has shown a consistent reduction of the bridging effect, which confirms our finding.
Acknowledgement
The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud
University for funding the work through the research group No. RGP-VPP-035.
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19
Al
Cr
Cu
Fe
Mg
Mn
Si
Ti
Zn
Other
Mass
content
90.794.7
Max
0.1
3.84.9
Max
0.5
1.21.8
0.30.9
Max
0.5
Max
0.15
Max
0.25
Max
0.15
20
21
Unrepaired
Repaired
(a)
Repaired
Unrepaired
(b)
Figure 4 Variable amplitude loading sequence of two blocks
(a) Decreasing block (H-L) (b) Increasing block (L-H)
7kN
12kN
7-12kN
12-7kN
21
Pre-patch Load
7kN
12kN
7kN
12kN
Post-patch Load
7kN
12kN
12kN
7kN
Patched at crack
length
3mm
3mm
3mm
3mm
8 Plies,
50x50mm
9 Plies,
50x50mm
10 Plies,
50x50mm
11 Plies,
50x50mm
Patch
Configuration
Material
50
R0-Unrepaired
45
R0-Repaired
40
Crack length (mm)
R0.1-Unrepaired
35
R0.1-Repaired
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
Number of Cycles
50000
60000
70000
Figure 5 Fatigue life of repaired and unrepaired Al 2024-T3 under increasing blocks (L-H/712kN)
23
50
L-H- Unrepaired
45
L-H -Repaired
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
20000
40000
Figure 6 Comparison of repaired and unrepaired Al 2024-T3 for increasing block loading (LH/ 7-12kN) and constant loads at R=0.1
1.E-04
L-H, UR, R0
L-H, UR, R0.1
L-H, Repaired, R0
L-H, Repaired, R0.1
da/dN (m/cycles)
1.E-05
1.E-06
1.E-07
1.E-08
0
0.005
0.01
Crack length (m)
0.015
0.02
24
50
R0-Unrepaired
45
R0-Repaired
40
R0.1-Unrepaired
35
R0.1-Repaired
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
Number of Cycles
Figure 8 Fatigue life of repaired and unrepaired Al 2024-T3 under decreasing blocks (H-L/127)
1.E-04
da/dN (m/cycles)
1.E-05
1.E-06
H-L, Unrepaired, R0
1.E-07
1.E-08
1.E-09
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
Crack length (m)
0.02
0.025
25
45
H-L- Repaired
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
Number of Cycles
Figure 10 Comparison of repaired and unrepaired Al 2024-T3 for decreasing block loading
(H-L/ 12-7 kN) and constant loads at R=0.1
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
F1 = 12 kN
15
F1 = 11kN
10
F1 = 10 kN
F1 = 9 kN
5
0
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
Number of cycles
26
Figure 11 Effect of the amplitude of the first block on the fatigue life of repaired Al 2024-T3
for decreasing blocks (H-L) case at R=0.1
50
L-H- Repaired
45
L-H- Unrepaired
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
20000
40000
60000
No. of Cycles
80000
100000
Figure 12 Comparison of repaired and unrepaired Al 7075-T6 for increasing block loading (LH/ 7-12kN) at R=0.1
27
H-L- Repaired
H-L- Unrepaired
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
20000
40000
Figure 13 Comparison of repaired and unrepaired Al 7075-T6 for decreasing block loading
(H-L/ 12-7kN) at R=0.1
50
2024 - Unrepaired
45
2024 - Repaired
7075 - Unrepaired
40
7075 - Repaired
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
100000
200000
Number of cycles
300000
400000
Figure 14 Fatigue life of specimens in aluminum alloys 2024-T3 and 7075-T6 under
decreasing blocks (H-L) at R=0.1
28
700
600
500
400
7075-T6
2024-T3
300
200
100
0
0
0.025
0.05
0.075
True Strain (mm/mm)
0.1
0.125
0.15
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2024 - Unrepaired
2024 -Repaired
7075- Unrepaired
7075- -Repaired
20000
40000
Number of cycles
60000
Figure 16 Fatigue life of specimens in aluminum alloys 2024-T3 and 7075-T6 under
increasing blocks (L-H) at R=0.1
29
Const. 7kN
Const.
12kN
L-H
(7-12kN)
H-L
(12-7kN)
Config. At
R=0.1
Unrepaired
Repaired
Unrepaired
Repaired
Unrepaired
Repaired
Unrepaired
Repaired
Al 2024-T3
No. of
cycles to
failure
(N)
77590
133867
17210
28036
54429
57579
344542
190950
Al 7075-T6
%
increase
in fatigue
life
72.53125
62.90529
5.787356
-44.5786
No. of
cycles to
failure (N)
40172
89980
13010
22149
22470
32630
77300
135060
%
increase
in fatigue
life
123.9869
70.24596
45.21584
74.72186
(a)
30
(b)
Figure 17 SEM observation of the fractured 2024-T3 surface at 3 mm of the notch tip for
unrepaired specimens after failure subjected the increasing fatigue blocks (7kN-12kN): (a)
transition brittle-ductile fracture (b) fatigue striations
31
Figure 18 SEM observation of the fracture surface at 3 mm of the notch tip for repaired 2024T3 specimens after failure subjected the increasing fatigue blocks (7kN-12kN)
Figure 19 SEM observation of the fracture surface at 35 mm of the notch tip for unrepaired
2024-T3 specimens after failure subjected the increasing fatigue blocks (7kN-12kN)
32
Figure 20 SEM observation of the fracture surface at 35 mm of the notch tip for repaired
2024-T3 specimens after failure subjected the increasing fatigue blocks(7kN-12kN)
Figure 21 SEM observation of the fracture surface at 35 mm of the notch tip for unrepaired
2024-T3 specimens after failure subjected the decreasing fatigue blocks (12kN-7kN)
33
Figure 22 SEM observation of the fracture surface at 35 mm of the notch tip for repaired
2024-T3 specimens after failure subjected the decreasing fatigue blocks (12kN-7kN)
34
Highlights
an increase of the maximum fatigue load after repair overcomes most of its crack
retardation
A decrease of the maximum fatigue load after the repair induces a lower crack growth
than the unpatched case for Al 7075
A crack generated in Al 2014 T3 material under a given fatigue load amplitude has
grown faster
35