An automated procedure for fatigue crack growth analysis

An automated procedure is developed to determine the influence of a crack detected in a structural element subjected to cyclic combined axial and bending loadings with constant amplitude. A theoretical formulation for fatigue crack growth analysis is presented and the results obtained are compared with the experimental data of the Wöhler curves. The critical crack configurations for which the fatigue failure occurs after a given number of loading cycles can be obtained from the above-mentioned comparison. Finally, an example is shown in order to illustrate the use of a computer program, which translates the proposed procedure.