CRACK GROWTH-BASED FATIGUE-LIFE PREDICTION OF ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED MATERIALS

In this study, a plasticity-induced crack closure model, FASTRAN, was used to predict the fatigue life of Inconel 718, 17-4 precipitation hardening (PH) stainless steel (SS), and Ti-6Al-4V alloys fabricated via additive manufacturing (AM) systems. Results indicated that in the presence of large defects (e.g., lack-of-fusion defects), the total fatigue life of AM specimens is dominated by crack growth. Results indicated that variations in the fatigue lives of specimens in machined and as-build surface conditions can be predicted based on the characteristics of AM process-induced defects and surface profile. Effect of build orientation on fatigue life was also captured based on the size of defects projected on a plane perpendicular to the loading direction. In addition, maximum valley depth of the surface profile can be used as an appropriate parameter for the fatigue-life prediction of AM specimens in their as‐built surface condition.
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