Access equipment and 100 CPU hours on the Gray XMP/24 at Boeing Computer Services will be obtained and very detailed finite element solutions for plane strain growing cracks will be generated. The computations will determine the evolution of the near-tip stress and deformation fields during stable crack growth and estimate its functional dependence on the crack growth history. Crack growth simulations will be performed for a deeply cracked bend geometry under conditions which progress from small scale to large scale, including yielding. Accurate numerical description of the near-tip fields will be sought for different judiciously chosen load versus crack length histories. The overall goal is to utilize these results on ductile crack growth equations and verify them with experimental results.
