Fatigue is one of the most prevalent mechanisms of failure. Thus, the evaluation of the fatigue crack growth process is fundamental in engineering applications subjected to cyclic loads. The fatigue crack growth rate is usually accessed through the da/dN-ΔK curves, which have some well-known limitations. In this study a numerical model that uses the cyclic plastic strain at the crack tip to predict da/dN was coupled with the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) damage model. The crack propagation process occurs, by node release, when the cumulative plastic strain reaches a critical value. The GTN model is used to account for the material degradation due to the growth of micro-voids process, which affects fatigue crack growth. Predictions with GTN are compared with the ones obtained without this ductile fracture model. Crack closure was studied in order to justify the lower values of da/dN obtained in the model with GTN, when compared with the results without GTN, for lower ΔK values. Finally, the accuracy of both variants of the numerical model is accessed through the comparison with experimental results.
Keywords: GTN damage model; crack closure; crack tip plastic deformation; fatigue crack growth.