Uncertainty quantification in small-timescale model-based fatigue crack growth analysis using a stochastic collocation method

Abstract

Due to the uncertainties originating from the underlying physical model, material properties and the measurement data in fatigue crack growth (FCG) processing, the prediction of fatigue crack growth lifetime is still challenging. The objective of this paper was to investigate a methodology for uncertainty quantification in FCG analysis and probabilistic remaining useful life prediction. A small-timescale growth model for the fracture mechanics-based analysis and predicting crack-growth lifetime is studied. A stochastic collocation method is used to alleviate the computational difficulties in the uncertainty quantification in the small-timescale model-based FCG analysis, which is derived from tensor products based on the solution of deterministic FCG problems on sparse grids of collocation point sets in random space. The proposed method is applied to the prediction of fatigue crack growth lifetime of Al7075-T6 alloy plates and verified by fatigue crack-growth experiments. The results show that the proposed method has the advantage of computational efficiency in uncertainty quantification of remaining life prediction of FCG.