Summary

This Toolbox App for ESDU 20003 provides a database of R-curves for several aluminium, steel and titanium aerospace sheet materials in SI and British units. The database is organised according to material type, specification, heat treatment, orientation and additional criteria such as thickness and width. The graph data can be exported in a variety of formats including CSV.

The Data Item provides crack resistance curve data and a means for estimating the growth of a crack during the application of a given load or for estimating the combination of load and given crack length that will cause fast fracture. Crack resistance curves apply to the macro-growth of a crack during the application of a single load and their principal use is to estimate the static strength of a cracked thin sheet structure. They do not relate to crack growth under cyclic load where growth per load cycle is on the micro scale. However, the most common cause of a crack in a structure is fatigue and crack resistance curves are used to determine the length of a crack propagated by fatigue that is sufficient to cause fast fracture during a single load application.

Please refer to the Data Item for further instruction on the application of these crack resistance curves.