In the current work an experimental study of the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) is performed to evaluate the ability of this parameter to characterise fatigue crack growth. A methodology is developed to measure and to analyse the CTOD from experimental data. The vertical displacements measured by implementing Digital Image Correlation on growing fatigue cracks are used to measure the CTOD. Fatigue tests at R ratios of 0.1 and 0.6 were conducted on compact-tension specimens manufactured from commercially pure titanium. A sensitivity analysis was performed to explore the effect of the position selected behind the crack tip for the CTOD measurement. The analysis of a full loading cycle allowed identifying the elastic and plastic components of the CTOD. The plastic CTOD was found to be directly related to the plastic deformation at the crack tip. Moreover, a linear relationship between da/dN and the plastic CTOD for both tests was observed. Results show that the CTOD can be used as a viable alternative to ?K in characterising fatigue crack propagation because the parameter considers fatigue threshold and crack shielding in an intrinsic way. This work is intended to contribute to a better understanding of the different mechanisms driving fatigue crack growth and the address the outstanding controversy associated with plasticity-induced fatigue crack closure.

Background: The Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) is used to describe the stress state and the mechanical behaviour of a material in the presence of cracks. SIF can be experimentally assessed using contactless techniques such as Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA). The classic TSA theory concerns the relationship between temperature and stress variations and was successfully applied to fracture mechanics for SIF evaluation and crack tip location. This theory is no longer valid for some materials, such as titanium and aluminium, where the temperature variations also depend on the mean stress. Objective: The objective of this work was to present a new thermoelastic equation that includes the mean stress dependence to investigate the thermoelastic effect in the proximity of crack tips on titanium. Methods: Westergaard’s equations and Williams’s series expansion were employed in order to express the thermoelastic signal, including the second-order effect. Tests have been carried out to investigate the differences in SIF evaluation between the proposed approach and the classical one. Results: A first qualitative evaluation of the importance of considering second-order effects in the thermoelastic signal in proximity of the crack tip in two loading conditions at two different loading ratios, R = 0.1 and R = 0.5, consisted of comparing the experimental signal and synthetic TSA maps. Moreover, the SIF, evaluated with the proposed and classical approaches, was compared with values from the ASTM standard formulas. Conclusions: The new formulation demonstrates its improved capability for describing the stress distribution in the proximity of the crack tip. The effect of the correction cannot be neglected in either Williams’s or Westergaard’s model.