Workshop 4

Interpretation of Fully Relaxing Fatigue Crack

Growth (FCG) Test Data

Goals
When you complete this workshop, you will be able to:
 Understand the raw data of fully relaxing fatigue crack growth tests.
 Know how to calibrate crack growth parameters from fully relaxing fatigue crack
growth test data.

Introduction
fe-safe/Rubber requires the following material parameters in order to perform fatigue life
calculation of rubber component.
- Hyperelastic parameters (user selects one of the following available models)
o Neo-Hookean form [NEOHOOKEAN]
o Arruda-Boyce form [ARRUDABOYCE]
o Mooney-Rivlin form [MOONEYRIVLIN]
o Reduced Polynomial form [REDUCEDPOLY]
o Van der Waals form [VANDERWAALS]
o Ogden form [OGDEN]
- Mullins effect parameters
- Fatigue Crack Growth (R=0) parameters
o Type : type of fatigue crack growth rate law
 THOMAS
 LAKELINDLEY
 FCGR(T)
o c0 (mm) : initial flaw size
o cf (mm) : critical flaw size
o F0 : power law slope
o rc (mm/cyc) : critical crack growth rate
o T0 (kJ/m^2) : threshold tearing energy
o Tc (kJ/m^2) : critical tearing energy
o TempCoef (1/degC) : temperature sensitivity coefficient
o TempRef (degC) : reference temperature
o Tt (kJ/m^2) : transition tearing energy
o fcgr(T) (mm/cyc) : tabular definition of
- Strain Crystallization Crack Growth (R>0) parameters
o Type : type of fatigue crack growth rate law
 NONCRYSLLIZATION

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 MARSFATEMI
 TABULAR
o Fexp : power law exponent
o F1 : power law coefficient 1
o F2 : power law coefficient 2
o F3 : power law coefficient 3
o x(R) : crystallization as a function of load ratio R
- Steady (Quasi-Static or Creep) Crack Growth Behavior parameters
o Viscoelastic creep crack growth rate parameters
 Type : creep crack growth rate type
 NOCREEP
 POWERLAW
 DCDTIME(T)
 FQS : slope of the power law curve
 RQS : time rate of crack growth at TQS [mm/sec]
 TempCoefQS : temperature coefficient [1/degC]
 TempRefQS : reference temperature [degC]
 TMINQS : minimum crack driving force [kJ/m^2]
 TMAXQS : maximum crack driving force [kJ/m^2]
 TQS : reference crack driving force [kJ/m^2]
 ccgr(T) : time rate of crack growth as a function of T [mm/sec]
o Ozone effect parameters
 Type : ozone crack growth rate type
 NONE
 WILLIAMS
 GENTMCGRATH
 Fv : exponent of temperature effect [unitless]
 Gv : threshold of exponential temperature effect [degC]
 Kv : ozone attack constant Kv [mm/sec]
 Kz : ozone attack constant Kz [mm/sec]
 rz : time rate of crack growth above ozone threshold Tz [mm/sec]
 Tg : temperature at glass transition [degC]
 Tz : ozone effect crack growth threshold [kJ/m^2]

Power law slope (F0), critical crack growth rate (rc) and the transition tearing energy (Tt)
will be calibrated from the fully relaxing fatigue crack growth test data in this workshop.

Calibration Procedure
‘WS4_FCG_R’ folder has a single file; ‘NR1_23C_FCG_R.’ The calibration procedure
starts with opening this file by Excel. As shown in Figure W4 - 1, follow the instruction
below to open raw data.
1. Click file type button
2. Change file type to ‘All file types’
3. Select raw data file
4. Click Open

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5. Check whether ‘Delimited’ is selected
6. Click ‘Next’
7. Check ‘Tab’ as Delimiters and check whether the columnar data is shown
properly
8. Click ‘Finish’
9. File is opened

Figure W4 - 1 Reading fully relaxing fatigue crack growth test data in Excel.
Step 1. Plot Crack length and Tearing energy vs. Cycles.
At cell U2, enter formula “ ” and copy this to entire column U.
Plot column A vs. column Q to get a plot of the crack length w.r.t. cycles. Figure W4 - 2
shows the crack length change as the crack growing cycles are accumulated.
And plot column A vs. column U to get a plot of the tearing energy w.r.t. cycles. Figure
W4 - 3 shows the cycle dependent tearing energy evolution. In the figure, the consistent
power-law slope region of tearing energy vs. cycles is shown with red-dotted line. This
region data will be used for calculating the power-law slope of crack growth rate and
tearing energy later.

Step 2. Calculate crack length change and crack growth rate.

Enter formula “ ” in cell V2 and “ ” in cell W3. And copy V2 to entire
column V and copy W3 to entire column W to get crack length change on column V and
crack growth rate on column W. Measured crack growth rate as a function of tearing
energy is shown in Figure W4 - 4.

Step 3. Find consistent tearing energy region.

As shown in Figure W4 - 3, the consistent tearing energy region can be found by
monitoring the least square fit error norm by using variable power-law fit on tearing
energy plot. For workshop data, rows 199 through 394 show consistent power-law slope.

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80

70

Crack Length (mm) 60

50

40

30 R_CrackWidth1

20

10

0
0 50000 100000 150000 200000
Cycles

Figure W4 - 2 Crack length vs. Cycles.

2000
1800
1600
Tearing Energy (kJ/m2)

1400
1200
1000
T_U
800
T_consistent
600
400
200
0
0 50000 100000 150000 200000
Cycles

Figure W4 - 3 Tearing energy vs. Cycles with consistent tearing energy range.

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1.0E-04
dc/dN (mm/cyc)

dc/dN
1.0E-05
Data for Fit

1.0E-06
1.0E+00 1.0E+01 1.0E+02 1.0E+03 1.0E+04
Tearing Energy (kJ/m2)

Figure W4 - 4 Crack growth rate vs. Tearing energy.

Step 4. Calculate logarithms of tearing energy/crack growth rate and power-fit

slope/intercept.
Scroll down the worksheet and stop at row 199 because row 199 is the start of the
consistent tearing energy data.
Enter “ ” in cell Y199 and “ ” in cell Z199. Then copy these two
cells up to row 394.
And enter “ ” in cell AA199. Enter
“ ” in cell AB199.
- Cell AA199  Slope of power-law fit between tearing energy and crack growth
rate.
- Cell AB199  Intercept of power-law fit between tearing energy and crack
growth rate.

Step 5. Enter critical and threshold tearing energies from previous workshop.
Enter critical/threshold tearing energies calculated in the previous workshop at cells Z1
and Z2, respectively as shown in Figure W4 - 5. Also, enter formula “ ” in cell
Z3 and enter formula “ ” in cell AB1 to copy data calculated in Step 4.

Figure W4 - 5 Entering critical/threshold tearing energies.

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Step 6. Calculate , , , and .
From the crack growth rate equation;

( )

is the power-law exponent between and . So, the slope of ( ) and

is . Since intercept of ( ) and can be equated as;

where is intercept. So,

The transition tearing energy is given by;

The crack growth rate for Lake-Lindley model is governed by tearing energy as;

( )
{
where .

By entering following formulas in specific cells, we can calculate , , and .

- Cell Z3 : “ ” 
- Cell Z4 : “ 10^AB1*(Z1^Z3)” 
- Cell Z5 : “ Z2/(1-1/Z3)” 
- Cell Z6 : “ Z4*Z5^Z3/(Z1^Z3*(Z5-Z2))” 

Step 7. Check the fit by comparing raw and fit crack growth rates.
Enter following formula in cell X2 and copy it to entire column X.
“ IF(U2<=$Z$2,1.E-20,IF(U2<=$Z$5,$Z$6*(U2-$Z$2),IF(U2<$Z$1,$Z$4*(U2/$Z$1)^$Z$3,1.E+18)))”
Then column X now contains the calculated crack growth rate. Comparison of column X
with column W is shown in Figure W4 - 6. It is shown that the calibrated crack growth
rate is well correlated with the raw data.

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1.0E+00

1.0E-01

1.0E-02

1.0E-03
dc/dN (mm/cyc)

1.0E-04

1.0E-05
dc/dN
1.0E-06
dc/dN (fit)
1.0E-07

1.0E-08

1.0E-09

1.0E-10
1.0E+00 1.0E+01 1.0E+02 1.0E+03 1.0E+04
Tearing Energy (kJ/m2)

Figure W4 - 6 Comparison of calculated crack growth rate with raw data.

© Dassault Systèmes, 2017 Fully Relaxing Fatigue Crack Growth Test Data