Part-through cracked structures under cyclic loading

The purpose of the present paper is to review some recent advances in the field of fatigue fracture mechanics of engineering metallic structures. In particular, the failure of cyclically loaded structures often develops from part-through cracks. The analysis of this type of defects is complex, since the stress-intensity factor varies along the crack front. Moreover the shape of these flaws changes during the fatigue propagation, and this significantly affects the structure life prediction. The behaviour of surface cracks in metallic plates, round bars and pipes under constant amplitude cyclic loading is examined.