Fatigue acceleration in box beams under mechanical and thermal stress (Second Series)

Abstract

To assist the development and interpretation of the Concorde Major Fatigue Test a technique for accelerating fatigue testing was evaluated on structural box specimens under combined mechanical and thermal loadings. It is shown that for a moderate level of thermal fatigue the acceleration achieved was in reasonably good agreement with prediction but that at a high level of thermal fatigue the acceleration was appreciably higher than predicted. A tendency was observed for acceleration to be higher in crack propagation than in crack initiation.