An incremental formulation for the prediction of two‐dimensional fatigue crack growth with curved paths

This paper presents a new incremental formulation for predicting the curved growth paths of two‐dimensional fatigue cracks. The displacement and traction boundary integral equations (BIEs) are employed to calculate responses of a linear elastic cracked body. The Paris law and the principle of local symmetry are adopted for defining the growth rate and direction of a fatigue crack, respectively. The three governing equations, i.e. the BIEs, the Paris law and the local symmetry condition, are non‐linear with respect to the crack growth path and unknowns on the boundary. Iterative forms of three governing equations are derived to solve problems of the fatigue crack growth by the Newton–Raphson method. The incremental crack path is modelled as a parabola defined by the crack‐tip position, and the trapezoidal rule is employed to integrate the Paris law. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by two numerical examples of plates with an edge crack.