The effect of notch size on critical distance and fatigue life predictions

Notch and size effects generally show great influence on the fatigue behavior of engineering structures, which plays a vital role during their structural integrity and reliability evaluations. In this study, the influence of notch size effect on fatigue life and critical distance values were investigated. Particularly, a novel method for fatigue life distribution assessment of notched specimens was proposed based on Weibull model and critical distance theory. Experimental data of Al 2024-T351 smooth plate specimens and center hole plate (CHP) specimens with four different notch radii were utilized for model validation and comparison. Results show that all predicted lives of Al 2024-T351 CHP specimens are within the +/- 2 life scatter bands of experimental ones. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).