Residual strength of stiffened LY12CZ aluminum alloy panels with widespread fatigue damage

Experimental and analytical investigations on the residual strength of the stiffened LY12CZ aluminum alloy panels with widespread fatigue damage (WFD) are conducted. Nine stiffened LY12CZ aluminum alloy panels with three different types of damage are tested for residual strength. Each specimen is pre-cracked at rivet holes by saw cuts and subjected to a monotonically increasing tensile load until failure is occurred and the failure load is recorded. The stress intensity factors at the tips of the lead crack and the adjacent WFD cracks of the stiffened aluminum alloy panels are calculated by compounding approach and finite element method (FEM) respectively. The residual strength of the stiffened panels with WFD is evaluated by the engineering method with plastic zone linkup criterion and the FEM with apparent fracture toughness criterion respectively. The predicted residual strength agrees well with the experiment results. It indicates that in engineering practice these methods can be used for residual strength evaluation with the acceptable accuracy. It can be seen from this research that WFD can significantly reduce the residual strength and the critical crack length of the stiffened panels with WFD. The effect of WFD crack length on residual strength is also studied.