Manuela Sander

Experiments and Interpretations of some Load Interaction Phenomena in Fatigue Crack Growth Related to Compressive Loading

The present paper addresses two issues regarding the influence of compressive loadings for fatigue crack growth. The first issue is the crack tip loading in compression. It will be verified that Kmaxand R are not suitable to account for compressive loading conditions at the crack tip. The second issue is the investigation of some basic load interaction effects in tension-compression loading. Especially loading conditions that were reported leading to an acceleration of fatigue crack growth were revisited. Numerical simulations of the experiments are used to interpret the results.

Experimental Investigations and Damage Calculations of a Load Time History in the Very High Cycle Fatigue

The main focus of this investigation is to clarify the influence of variable amplitude loadings on subsurface crack initiation and crack growth. Therefore, differently reconstructed load sequences on the basis of a standardized load time history called FELIX are investigated with an R-ratio of -1. The major amount of cycles is situated beneath the fatigue strength. A new damage calculation approach considering inclusion sizes is presented. Thus, the stress amplitude in the S-N curve was normalized with a calculated fatigue limit σw(area), which is defined by Murakami. Afterward, the fatigue life depending on the inclusion size is calculated using a Palmgren/Miner rule. The largest inclusion in the measurement volume was determined using extreme value statistics. Fatigue lives for each investigated load sequence were calculated taking the scatter of inclusion sizes into account.

Combined Calorimetry, Thermo-Mechanical Analysis and Tensile Test on Welded EN AW-6082 Joints

Wide softening zones are typical for welded joints of age hardened aluminium alloys. In this study, the microstructure evolution and distribution of mechanical properties resulting from welding processes of the aluminium alloy EN AW-6082 (AlSi1MgMn) was analysed by both in-situ and ex-situ investigations. The in-situ thermal analyses included differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), which was used to characterise the dissolution and precipitation behaviour in the heat affected zone (HAZ) of welded joints. Thermo-mechanical analysis (TMA) by means of compression tests was used to determine the mechanical properties of various states of the microstructure after the welding heat input. The necessary temperature–time courses in the HAZ for these methods were measured using thermocouples during welding. Additionally, ex-situ tensile tests were done both on specimens from the fusion zone and on welded joints, and their in-depth analysis with digital image correlation (DIC) accompanied by finite element simulations serve for the description of flow curves in different areas of the weld. The combination of these methods and the discussion of their results make an essential contribution to understand the influence of welding heat on the material properties, particularly on the softening behaviour. Furthermore, the distributed strength characteristic of the welded connections is required for an applicable estimation of the load-bearing capacity of welded aluminium structures by numerical methods.

Fatigue life on a full scale test rig: Forged versus cast wind turbine rotor shafts

To reduce uncertainties associated with the fatigue life of the highly safety relevant rotor shaft and also to review todays design practice, the fatigue behaviour will be tested on a full scale test rig. Until now tests on full scale wind turbine parts are not common. Therefore, a general lack of experience on how to perform accelerated life time tests for those components exists. To clarify how to transfer real conditions to the test environment, the arrangements and deviations for the upcoming experimental test are discussed in detail. In order to complete investigations of weight saving potentials, next to getting a better comprehension of the fatigue behaviour by executing a full scale test, a further outcome are suggestions for the usage of cast and forged materials regarding the fatigue and the remaining life of the rotor shaft. It is shown, that it is worthwhile to think about a material exchange for the forged rotor shaft.

Finding the ideal strategy: Full-scale fatigue testing of wind turbine rotor shafts

For the purpose of a light weight design of rotor shafts, fatigue testing is necessary. Since full-scale fatigue tests of these large components are time consuming, costly and have not been done before, much effort has to be put into the implementation of a suitable test strategy. The paper presents the boundary conditions that have to be considered to determine the finite life regime of the component S/N-curve. A statistical simulation shows how much the derived S/N-curve is influenced by the specific test procedure.