Probabilistic modeling of fatigue crack growth in Ti-6Al-4V

This paper presents the results of a combined experimental and analytical study of the probabilistic nature of fatigue crack growth in Ti-6Al-4V. A simple experimental fracture mechanics framework is presented for the determination of statistical fatigue crack growth parameters from two fatigue tests. The experimental studies show that the variabilities in long fatigue crack growth rate data and the Paris coefficient are well described by the log-normal distributions. The variabilities in the Paris exponent are also shown to be well characterized by a normal distribution. The measured statistical distributions are incorporated into a probabilistic fracture mechanics framework for the estimation of material reliability. The implications of the results are discussed for the probabilistic analysis of fatigue crack growth in engineering components and structures. (orig.)