A multi-scale damage model for fatigue accumulation due to short cracks nucleation and growth

•A multi-scale damage model is proposed.•The model can describe both behaviour of short cracks and fatigue damage.•It offers a new reasonable explanation on the effect of load sequence.•It can be applied to predict fatigue life of metal material.

A multi-scale fatigue damage evolution model is proposed for describing both the behaviour of short fatigue cracks nucleation and growth in micro-scale and fatigue damage evolution reflecting the progressive deterioration process of metal components and structures in macro-scale. The model is verified through the experimental data of fatigue damage. It was found that, the model can offer a new reasonable explanation of the effect of load sequence on fatigue life, and also can predict the fatigue life during fatigue damage accumulation due to short cracks nucleation and growth in metal components and structures.

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