The effect of stress ratio on fatigue crack growth rate in the absence of closure

A fractographic study was performed on Al-alloy fatigue fracture surfaces produced by programmed load sequences. The load sequences included steps of constant amplitude cycles at three different stress ratios, each step is preceded by a small number of high amplitude cycles designed to avoid the influence of crack closure and to serve as fractographic markers. The experiments were conducted on different specimen geometries to produce conditions associated with a long crack under fully elastic conditions and a short crack in a notched coupon seeing high local post yield stress conditions. Crack sizes covered in the study ranged from 0.02 to 12 mm, and growth rates ranged from 2×10<SUP>−7</SUP> to 4×10<SUP>−5</SUP> mm cycle<SUP>−1</SUP>. Fractographic evidence from the study suggests that the crack growth rate can vary by up to a factor of five with applied stress ratio change from 0.64 to 0.73. In the case of the long crack, the effect is less noticeable or totally absent. In the case of naturally initiating notch root cracks, the effect is more pronounced at higher stress level and lower crack growth rate