Thermoelastic Analysis of Crack Propagation in AA6082 Friction Stir Welded Joints

Thermolastic Stress Analysis (TSA) has been recently developed as a direct investigating method for the study of the stress field around the crack tip of a cyclically loaded structure. The advantage of using measurement techniques based on the thermoelastic effect lays in the fact that stress intensity factors may be determined based on the effective stress distribution around the crack tip rather than calculated from the crack length and amplitude of cyclic loads. This paper reports results related to fatigue tests on Friction Stir Welded alluminium alloys sheets. Fatigue crack propagation experiments were performed by employing single-edge notched specimens, in tensiontension condition with R=0.1, up to failure. The application of TSA allowed the monitoring of crack formation and growth in real time, providing the actual stress distribution around the crack tip for the different technological parameters used in the welding process. Stress intensity factors were determined based on the TSA data and compared to those calculated using an ABAQUS FE model.