Parametric (Non)-Variance of the Mid-Regime Fatigue Crack Propagation in an Aluminium Alloy AA6056-T6

Abstract Extent of experiment-related variability in fatigue crack propagation is essential to be known while comparing the performance with other materials, for assessment of welds or damage tolerance analysis. Since such a variability can be dependent on material or parameter investigated, and may originate from the size effect, thin sheets of the relatively new airframe alloy AA6056-T6 have been investigated for baseline data using C(T) and M(T) specimens. As a screening step, various parameters such as surface cladding, crack plane orientation, specimen width and thickness, and initial notch length have been varied on C(T) specimens. The material also stems from different heats. The maximum crack opening displacement (COD max ), obtained from a displacement gauge, is calibrated against the optical crack length for the indirect crack length measurement and its precision is increased by acquiring an individual calibration curve for each specimen. The variability in the mid-regime fatigue crack propagation range is found to be relatively low (± 35%). With this range as the tolerance, the alloy is found to exhibit mostly a parametric non-variance, since, except for the specimen type, other parameters investigated are found to be non-influential. M(T) specimens are found to yield conservative fatigue crack propagation data.