| Summary: | Residual stress exists in most structures and although it has been recognised for a long time, its complex mechanism and characteristics are still being intensively studied. Residual stress can be stratified into damaging residual stress and beneficial residual stress. Surface tensile residual stresses are generally known to reduce the mechanical properties of materials while compressive residual stresses improve the fatigue performance of components. This Ph.D. thesis reports the analytical and experimental work conducted to investigate both the damaging and beneficial effects of residual stress on fatigue crack growth in structural components. The detrimental effect of tensile residual stresses is studied through large scale fatigue testing of T-butt welded plates fabricated from High Strength Steels (HSS). Despite the growing use of HSSs in the offshore industry, the fatigue performance and corrosion resistance of welded joints made from such steels are still not clear. Due to their complex metallurgy and relatively poor weldability, there is still a lack of understanding of the residual stresses that arise from the welding process. This study involved modification and development conducted on a variable amplitude (VA) load-time sequence generator for the investigation of long life fatigue performance of HSS. Emphasis was given to the generation of a stationary load-time history and numerous analyses were presented to demonstrate the importance of the long term statistical nature of the load-time sequence on fatigue testing. Fatigue test results obtained were extensively compared with previous HSS corrosion fatigue studies. The effect of tensile residual stress on fatigue crack growth was investigated using a SIF weight function-based fatigue crack growth model. Two newly developed preferential cold working techniques termed stitch cold rolling and stitch shot peening were explored to investigate the beneficial effect of surface compressive residual stress on fatigue crack growth in mild steel plates. One of the main objectives of this study was to control the fatigue crack shape by the manipulation of surface residual stress fields. The stitch cold rolling technique was implemented using a custom-built cold rolling jig. The feasibility of preferential cold working techniques was further investigated by the fatigue testing of stitch shot peened specimens. Both experimental programmes yielded unprecedented fatigue crack growth results. A residual stress monitoring programme was conducted to study the residual stress relaxation behaviour under cyclic loading. The experimental test results enabled the investigation of SIF solutions in non-uniform stress fields. A novel fatigue crack growth evolution model, which takes into account residual stress relaxation effects, was developed using the powerful SIF weight function methods.
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