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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/L42391/01
Title: INVESTIGATION OF WAKE CONTACT STRESSES DEVELOPED DURING FATIGUE CRACK GROWTH
Principal Investigator: James, Professor M
Other Investigators:
Nurse, Mr P Patterson, Professor EA Grieve, Dr D
Edmonds, Dr M Nurse, Mr P
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Mechanical & Marine Engineering
Organisation: University of Plymouth
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 05 January 1998 Ends: 04 January 2001 Value (£): 124,836
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Eng. Dynamics & Tribology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The programme aims at making a fundamental contribution to understanding and separating the stress effects of crack tip plasticity from those arising at the crack tip as a result of crack wake plasticity (crack closure). This interaction is still not well understood, as techniques used to measure closure, such as compliance, are indirect. It appears that photoelastic techniques may offer a way to study the interaction directly, both at the surface and, importantly, through the thickness of the specimen. Thus the first part of the project aims at examining and optimising the ability of photoelastic techniques to charaterise wake contact stresses and their influence on crack tip stresses. If this can be done with sufficient sensitivity, one will then gain insight into the best way of characterising crack closure from the widely used compliance technique - this will represent a significant advance in predictive capability for fatigue crack growth using the effective range of stress intensity factor.
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Organisation Website: http://www.plym.ac.uk