Long co-planar mode III fatigue crack growth under non-proportional mixed mode loading in rail steel

Fatigue tests have been performed to obtain the co-planar crack growth rate in rail steel under non-proportional mixed mode I and mode III cycles. In addition, a finite element analysis (FEA) has been performed to investigate the crack growth behaviour under this loading. The experiments showed that a long co-planar crack could be produced under this loading. Based on fracture surface observations obtained using a scanning electron microscope...