Retardation of fatigue crack growth in aircraft aluminium alloys via laser heating - Experimental proof of concept

Abstract

In this work, a defocused laser was used to modify the residual stress state in AA2198-T8 C(T)100 specimens with the goal of retarding fatigue crack growth. The manuscript provides a description of the process, the resulting changes of the material properties and the modied fatigue crack growth behaviour. The performed experiments, including thermocouple measurements, microscopical examinations, micro-hardness measurements, residual stress measurements and fatigue crack growth measurements under constant amplitude loading show, that via laser heating a substantial retardation of fatigue crack growth can be achieved.