Temperature distribution around a propagating fatigue crack

A theoretical study of the heat transfer phenomena from a propagating crack tip and an experimental investigation to verify the theoretical results were conducted. A temperature distribution equation based on theories of fracture mechanics and heat transfer was developed. Measurements of temperature at the crack tip were made by taking thermal pictures or thermograms with a thermovision camera. The measured results were compared with the computed results. The magnitude of the temperature at and near a propagating crack tip depends upon the specimen geometry, loading, crack extension, and propagating velocity of the crack for a given material, but the heat flow patterns, i.e., the isotherms and the temperature ridge curves are closely related to the velocity of crack propagation only.