Non-linear MSD crack growth by DBEM for a riveted aeronautic reinforcement

A special specimen is created cutting a rectangular notched area from the surrounding of the upper left corner of a wide body aircraft door. Then a constant amplitude fatigue traction load is applied by a special servo-hydraulic machine, in order to induce a Multi Site Damage (MSD) scenario.The Dual Boundary Element method (DBEM), as implemented in a commercial code, is adopted for a three-dimensional MSD crack growth simulation of such multi-layer and multi-material component. To this aim, the cracked part of a pre-existing global two-dimensional model is extracted and “extruded” in order to generate a three-dimensional submodel, whose boundary conditions are imposed displacements, calculated by the two-dimensional model, along a virtual line corresponding to the submodel boundary. Non-linear contact conditions are applied between the mating plate surfaces in the area surrounding the cracks, in order to precisely model the plate interactions in the area of interest.The three-dimensional approach is aimed to improve, with respect to the two-dimensional approach, the correlation between numerical and experimental results (e.g. by an accurate assessment of the secondary bending effects). The obtained improvements on crack growth rates, in the initial part of the crack propagation, justify the increased computational effort that a three-dimensional non-linear approach involves.The proposed numerical procedure, based on DBEM, is successfully validated for the virtual testing of a complex aeronautic reinforcement.