Fatigue Crack Initiation And Propagation From Defects In Metals: Is 3D Characterization Important?

This paper aims at illustrating the physical information that can be extracted from 3D tomographic images of fatigue cracks growing from defects. After highlighting the current limits of the method, examples of application are given for various metallic materials, a comparison of the merits of natural v.s. artificial defects is given with examples of how the 3D data can be used for modeling.