Abstract
PEARSON1 has shown that for many materials a small internal fatigue crack of length l, which propagates in a wide sheet of thickness t (under conditions approximating plane strain with the peak tensile stress amplitude σa≪σy, the yield strength), grows at a rate given by 
where N is the number of stress cycles, E is Young's modulus, and K≃σa(l/2)½ (the stress-intensity factor). It is interesting to consider how this result can be reconciled with the results of fracture mechanics.
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HAM, R. Fatigue Crack Propagation in Metals. Nature 212, 1568–1569 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2121568a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2121568a0
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