Fatigue crack growth in round bars for rock anchorages: the role of residual stresses

The role of different residual stress profiles in the fatigue crack growth is studied in prestressing steel wires under tension loading or bending moment. The crack front evolution is analyzed by means of a computer program on the basis of the Walker law. Numerical results indicate that the absence of residual stresses makes the crack propagate following a preferential cracking path. When surface residual stresses are tensile and, correspondingly, core residual stresses are compressive, the fatigue crack fronts rapidly converge towards a quasi-straight shape. When surface residual stresses are compressive, with their corresponding tensile stresses in the core area, a preferential cracking path also appears. Copyright (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.