PRE-CRACK FATIGUE LIFE ASSESSMENT OF RELEVANT AIRCRAFT MATERIALS USING FRACTAL ANALYSIS OF EDDY CURRENT TEST DATA

Successful determination of residual fatigue life requires a comprehensive understanding of the fatigue related material deformation mechanism. Neither macroscopic continuum mechanics nor micromechanic observations provide sufficient data to explain subsequent deformation structures occurring during the fatigue life of a metallic structure. Instead mesomechanic deformation on different scaling levels can be studied by applying fractal analysis of various means of nondestructive inspection measurements. The resulting fractal dimension data can be correlated to the actual material damage states, providing an estimation of the remaining residual fatigue life before macroscopic fracture develops. Recent efforts were aimed to apply the fractal concept to aerospace relevant materials AA7075-T6 and Ti-6Al-4V. Proven and newly developed fractal analysis methods were applied to eddy current (EC) measurements of fatigued specimens, with the potential to transition this approach to an aircraft for an in-situ nondestructive inspection. The occurrence of mesomechanic deformation at the material surface of both AA7075-T6 and Ti-6Al-4V specimens could be established via topography images using confocal microscopy (CM). Furthermore, a pulsed eddy current (PEC) approach was developed, combined with a sophisticated new fractal analysis algorithm based on short pulse excitation and evaluation of EC relaxation behavior. This paper presents concept, experimental realization, fractal analysis procedures, and results of this effort.