Modified Swift Criteria for Residual Strength of Multiple Site Damage Structure

Abstract

As more aircrafts reach or exceed their design life, it is becoming very important to research multiple cracks damage, especially the multiple site damage (MSD) in order to re-evaluate their service life and damage tolerance/durability performance. The existing of MSD may remarkably reduce the residual strength of an aerospace structural component than those with a singe lead crack. This study investigated the residual strength of aluminum alloy sheet with MSD through three types of aluminum specimens test. Aluminum panels with bare collinear constant diameter holes were chosen as specimens. After some constant amplitude tension-tension load cycles, the MSD were found in these specimens since there were multiple fatigue cracks emanating from the saw cuts of holes. The residual strength was recorded as the maximum load when every specimen was subjected to monotonically increasing tensile load until failure occurred. In different failure prediction criteria that were often used in engineering in order to evaluate the accuracy of these criteria, Swift criterion (ligament yield) criterion got more accurate prediction results than other criteria. Although Swift criterion was more accurate than some other criteria, its error was still big for some specimens. Two modified approaches were proposed in order to get more accurate and appropriate failure criterion for MSD structure.