Abstract
The unusual susceptibility of the Al-Li alloy AA8090 to sustained macroscopic deviation of fatigue cracks from a nominal mode I path during conventional fatigue testing is discussed. It is demonstrated that the mixed mode crack growth associated with macroscopic deviation may be characterized in terms of elastic strain energy release rates for a range of mixed mode loading conditions. It is specifically shown that this form of mixed mode crack growth may lead to non-conservative crack growth predictions when these materials are subjected to conventional, mode I based structure lifing techniques.
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