Guillaume Benoit

Residual Fatigue Properties of a 2024-T351 Aluminium Alloy from the Teardown of AIRBUS A320 Wing Panels after Service

This paper reports on investigations on the residual fatigue resistance of a 2024 aluminium alloy of an A320 aircraft at the end of life. The fatigue data (S-N and da/dN curves) are compared with data obtained on a pristine alloy using a similar procedure. The results are analysed on the basis of fracture surfaces observations and of AFGROW fatigue life computations.

Influence of pressure cycling on damage evolution in an unfilled EPDM exposed to high-pressure hydrogen

This study aims to reveal the internal damage evolution process in a transparent ethylene propylene diene rubber (EPDM) under high-pressure hydrogen cycles (9 and 15 MPa). Damage accumulation of EPDM was tracked from in-situ pictures during cycling. Several dedicated image processing routines allowed the discrimination of mechanisms (separated cavities, clusters and cracks) and sometimes the qualification of their morphology (size distribution, number, ratio of cavities reappearing at any cycle). Numerous small cavities were observed at any cycle, some of them being clustered under the highest pressure. Only part of them systematically appeared again. Some of these cavities inflated and “absorbed” small cavities around them when clustered. Finally, a few cracks were nucleated from some large cavities and grew, following a “stop and grow” process.

Hydrogen Assisted Fatigue Crack Growth in a Precipitation-Hardened Martensitic Stainless Steel Under Gaseous Hydrogen

In this study, the effect of gaseous hydrogen on the fatigue crack growth behavior in a precipitation-hardened martensitic stainless steel is investigated. It is known that the degradation in fatigue crack growth behavior derives from a complex interaction between the fatigue damage and the amount of hydrogen enriching the crack tip, which is dependent on the hydrogen pressure, loading frequency, and stress intensity factor amplitude. Therefore, fatigue crack growth tests were performed in a range of 0.09 to 40 MPa under gaseous hydrogen at a frequency of 20 and 0.2 Hz. The fatigue data as well as fracture morphologies obtained so far indicate a sharp increase in crack growth rates in a narrow range of stress intensity factor amplitudes. Also, it is shown that by decreasing the loading frequency to 0.2 Hz at a given pressure of hydrogen the transition occurs at lower values of stress intensity factor amplitudes accompanied by a change in fracture mode. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations of the fracture surfaces are used to support the explanations proposed to account for the observed phenomena.Copyright

Cohesive Zone Modeling of Hydrogen Assisted Cracking in a 15-5 PH Steel and Comparison With Experiments

Gaseous hydrogen substantially reduces fracture properties such as threshold stress intensity factor and crack growth resistance in the precipitation-hardened martensitic stainless steel investigated in this study. Fatigue crack propagation tests were performed on CT specimens under different atmospheres (hydrogen pressures from 0.09 to 40 MPa) on the Hycomat test bench, at the Pprime Institute in Poitiers, France. A strongly enhanced crack growth regime was identified at high hydrogen pressure and low-frequency loading. Crack growth rates obtained at a constant load under same pressure levels suggest that a combination of tensile stresses above a threshold (KIscc) and fatigue cycles contribute to the hydrogen embrittlement at the crack tip.These experimental results were compared to the finite element simulation results obtained by a recently developed cohesive zone model at the crack tip. A specifically developed traction-separation law which is suitable to describe the gradual degradation of cohesive stresses under monotonic and cyclic loadings, and which is furthermore sensitive to the hydrogen concentration was used. The effects of the different testing conditions, in terms of loading frequency and hydrogen pressure, on the modeling results are discussed. It was shown that the model qualitatively predicts the detrimental influence of gaseous hydrogen on the crack growth rates.Copyright

Crack Growth in a Parallelepipedic Specimen Subjected to a Cyclic Temperature Gradient

Abstract A parallelepipedic coupon containing an edge notch has been submitted to cyclic edge temperature evolution, implying a cyclic temperature gradient in the specimen thickness. Associated analytical calculation of the stress intensity factor is also carried out using Duhamels theory and weight functions: this allows the study of the influence of geometric and thermal parameters on crack development. Moreover, an automatic procedure using scripting language introduced in a tridimensional numerical ABAQUS simulation leads to a prediction of the crack shape evolution in good agreement with experimental observations.