Finite Element Analysis of the Influence of Crack Tip Stress Distributionon Fatigue Crack Propagation Rate of 5XXX Aluminum Alloy
5XXX aircraft skin aluminum alloy needs relatively high fatigue performance to sustain complex pneumatic loading in service. Stress intensity factors are important parameters to compute fatigue crack propagation rate. XFEM was used to calculate the crack tip stress, as well as stress intensity factors (SIF) and fatigue crack propagation rate on the 5E62 alloy. Simulation results showed that the values of SIF calculated by XFEM were quite close to the theoretical values. Both the values of crack tip stress and SIF increase as crack length increasing in Paris region, resulting the increasing of fatigue crack growth rate. Fatigue crack propagation rate calculated by XFEM are consistent with the theoretical values and experimental values in Paris region.