Description:
<jats:p>The paper presents numerical and experimental results of continued studies of curved
fatigue crack growth in arbitrarily pre-cracked isotropic sheets under biaxial proportional plane
loading. The predictor-corrector method (PCM) was extended in order to analyse the growth of
multiple crack systems. As a result, the program PCCS-2D was written to run within ANSYS without
any user interaction. In order to check the accuracy and efficiency of the method biaxial crack
growth simulations were carried out for a fracture mechanics cruciform specimen. The results are
compared with experimental findings obtained by specimens made of 6061 aluminium alloy in
T651 condition using a 250kN biaxial servohydraulic testing machine. From the numerical and experimental
results, we conclude, that the proposed predictor-corrector method can be used in curved
crack growth simulation also under biaxial proportional loading conditions.</jats:p>