In diesem Beitrag werden Ergebnisse eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekts präsentiert, welches die Autoren während der letzten sieben Jahren durchgeführt haben. Schlü sselworte: Ausbreitung kurzer Ermüdungsrisse, mikrostrukturelle Barrieren, Randelementemethode, virtuelle Mikrostruktur This paper presents results of an interdisciplinary research project, which was undertaken by the authors during the past seven years on the subject of experimental characterization and modelling of microstructurally short fatigue crack growth. Fatigue testing was carried out on the austenitic-ferritic duplex stainless steel X2 CrNiMoN 22 -5-3. It was shown clearly that microstructural features like grain size, phase distribution or yield stress of the grain containing the crack tip control an advancing short crack.On the basis of these findings, a mechanism-oriented model was established, which is able to simulate the growth of microstructurally short fatigue cracks in a physically reasonable way. Microstructural parameters like grain size, grain distribution, grain orientation etc. are taken into account by assigning measured values to a modelled microstructure, in which the crack growth simulation takes place. The comparison of experimentally observed and calculated values shows excellent agreement.