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Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50

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Understanding crack growth in fuselage lap joints

R. Jones a, L. Molent b,*
, S. Pitt b

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, P.O. Box 31, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
b
Air Vehicles Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, 506 Lorimer Street, Fisherman’s Bend 3207, Australia

Available online 3 December 2007

Abstract

The problem of multi-site damage and multiple interacting cracks is one experienced by many aircraft manufacturers and
operators. This paper focuses on understanding the phenomena, and on developing a predictive capability that can form the
engineering framework for maintaining continued airworthiness. To this end the present paper uses a simple formulation
based on the Frost–Dugdale crack growth law to study the problem of cracking at fastener holes in fuselage lap joints
and shows that the predicted crack growth history is in good agreement with both experimental results and with fleet data.
Crown Copyright  2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fuselage lap joints; Crack growth; Prediction

1. Introduction necessary to have predictive tools that can form

Despite the fact that there was only one fatality
involved in the Aloha Airlines accident, it continues
to be described as the event which first brought the
ageing aircraft issue to the attention of the general
public and to those who have responsibility to
ensure aircraft safety. Comprehensive accounts of
this accident were given in [1–5]. Here individual
cracks in fastener holes in the upper row of the three
rows joining together the sheets of aluminium alloy
fuselage panel linked together to form a large crack
that defeated the fail safety of the fuselage. In isola-
tion, each crack about the fastener holes was sub-
critical. To adequately manage the problem of
‘multi-site’ and ‘wide spread fatigue damage’ it is
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9626 7653; fax: +61 3 9626
7072.
E-mail address: lorrie.molent@defence.gov.au (L. Molent).
the engineering framework for maintaining contin-
ued airworthiness. Recent investigations have
revealed that for a large class of engineering prob-
lems the crack growth history conforms to the
Frost–Dugdale law [6,7], namely that to a first
approximation the log of the crack length is propor-
tional to the simulated service hours, or number of
cycles, when tearing or fast fracture is ignored [6–
15]. It has been shown [6–15] that, in the absence
of fluctuating residual stresses and load shedding,
this exponential growth applies to crack sizes from
the near microns through to crack sizes of several
mm’s (i.e. the majority of the fatigue life) both for
constant and variable amplitude spectra. In this
paper we show that this behaviour is also seen for
multi-site damage (MSD) in fuselage lap joints.
The results published in [8–15] together with
the realisation that ‘‘in the threshold regime, there
is something missing’’ [16], coupled with the

0167-8442/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright  2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tafmec.2007.10.002
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50 39

statements from the USAF Damage Tolerance
Design Handbook [17] that:
(i) ‘‘The plasticity induced closure based predic-
tions by FASTRAN do not correlate with
the small crack growth data under periodic
over loads’’, and that ‘‘The predictions of
small crack life under spectrum loads (EIFS)
were even farther off.’’
(ii) ‘‘It has been demonstrated from the crack
growth data under both the constant ampli-
tude loads and the spectrum loads that the
small crack growth rates are higher than those
for long cracks.’’
led to the conjecture in [8–14] that in the Paris
Region I, i.e. the low to mid range DK region, the
crack growth rate could be expressed in the form:
ð1c=2Þ c chosen crack growth data from these tests are pre-
da=dN ¼ C 2 ða=a Þ ðDKÞ
ð1c=2Þ c follows, viz: A14 – rivet 5 refers to cracking from
¼ C  ðaÞ ðDKÞ ;
C*, C 2 , a*, and c are constants. It is clear that for
centre cracked panels this relationship, which we
will term the generalised Frost–Dugdale law, is con-
sistent with the original law proposed by Frost and
Dugdale [6,7]. Furthermore, it has also been shown
[14] that the generalised Frost–Dugdale law can be
related to the fractal based growth law presented
in [18,19], and the dislocation based crack law pre-
sented in [20].
The ability of this generalised Frost–Dugdale
crack growth law to predict cracks growing under
constant amplitude loading, and to a limited extent
periodic overloads, was studied in [13] whilst its
ability to predict crack growth in complex structural
parts under variable amplitude loading was studied
in [13,14]. This paper focuses on its ability to predict
crack growth at fastener holes in fuselage lap joints
and validates these predictions through comparison
with published experimental data.
with small crack starting notches that in most cases
were removed when reaming the holes to 4.039 mm
diameter. The specimen consisted of two 1.02 mm
thick 2024-T3 clad aluminium alloy sheets that were
fastened with three rows of 3.97 mm diameter
BACR15CE-5, 100 shear head counter-sunk rivets,
see Fig. 1. The width of the specimen was chosen to
coincide with the typical distance between tear straps
of a Boeing commercial aircraft. The specimens were
tested in tension to give a peak remote plate stress of
92 MPa, with R = 0.05, in a servo-hydraulic test
machine. To reproduce the amount of out-of-plane
bending due to fuselage curvature in a typical fuse-
lage joint the specimens were bonded back-to-back
and separated by a 12.5 mm thick honeycomb core.
The cracks emanating along the top row of fas-
teners were measured as they grew along the surface
using a 40· travelling microscope. Some randomly
sented in Fig. 2 were the terminology used was as
ð1Þ
rivet number 5 in the top row of rivets in specimen
A14. Here we see that for this configuration, which
was typical of that used in commercial aircraft,
before the onset of unstable tearing, the bulk of
the crack growth history appears to be reasonably
well represented by a linear relationship between

2. Crack growth and life prediction analysis

2.1. Experimental studies in MSD

A series of representative fuselage lap joint tests,

which used simple test specimens to investigate the
phenomenon of MSD, were performed as part of
the FAA Aging Aircraft Program [5]. In these tests
a worst-case scenario was assumed, viz: a non-
bonded, upper plate counter-sunk configuration Fig. 1. ‘‘Boeing’’ type lap joint specimen, from [5].
40 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
Fig. 2. Crack growth data in coupon tests and fleet data, (a) with radius added and (b) without radius added, adapted from [5].
ln(a) or ln(a + r) and the number of cycles. Note
that the slopes of the coupon crack growth data
are essentially identical (Fig. 2a or b). The difference
in the resulting lives was considered to be predomi-
nately influenced by the initiating defect size, i.e. the
value of a at time zero. Note that in this paper the
rivet radius (r) has been added to the crack depth
(a) as this was the convention used by other
researchers into MSD (e.g. [21]).1 It is also noted
1
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the data were essentially
exponential even before the addition of the fastener hole radius to
the crack length. This was not the case for all the data considered
herein. In some cases (e.g. [25]) there appeared to be accelerating
crack growth up to approximately a = 0.5 mm. The addition of r
produced continuous exponential crack growth history curves.
that the log-linear slopes implies that the growth
of individual cracks was not influenced by the pres-
ence of the other cracks in adjacent fasteners. As
noted in [5] adjacent crack link-up occurred due to
net section yield, which for these tests occurred
when the crack tips were approximately 2 mm
apart.
This test program also gave fatigue crack growth
rates that were in good agreement with available
commercial fleet data [21,22], see Fig. 2 N7371F–
N9035U. The difference in the crack growth slopes
possibly reflects the differences in the applied alter-
nating stress in fleet aircraft, which was due to
slightly different cabin pressures, and to cracking
occurring at different locations along the fuselage
in the fleet aircraft. This Figure also reveals that
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50 41

Fig. 3. (a) Failure of specimen A12. (b) Example of in-service cracking, from [5].

the MSD crack growth behaviour noted in fleet air-
craft could be captured using relatively simple spec-
imens. A view of the failure surface is shown in
Fig. 3a. By comparing this with Fig. 3b, from [5],
we see that these specimens reflected the nature of
the in-service crack growth.
The phenomenon of MSD was also considered in
the Foster–Miller tests, on large 2024-T3 0.91 mm
thick panels representative of a Boeing wide bodied
aircraft, performed at the Full-Scale Aircraft Struc-
tural Test Evaluation and Research (FASTER)
facility at the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) William J. Hughes Technical Center [23,24]
as part of the FAA Aging Aircraft research pro-
gram. The resultant crack growth data for a cyclic
pressure range of 55 MPa are summarized in [24],
and some randomly selected results were adapted
(i.e presented in log-linear form) and presented in
Fig. 4, where it is seen that to a first approximation
the crack growth conforms to the Frost–Dugdale
law [6,7]. The terminology adopted was used in
[24], which presented what was termed the ‘fastest’
growing crack as well as crack growth from a num-
ber of other rivets.
Representative lap joint coupon tests were also
reported by Fawaz [25] who used the USAF wide
panel test specimen geometry. Here the skin was a
1.6 mm thick 2024-T3 aluminium alloy sheet with
a 7075-T6 doubler and longeron, tested at
103.4 MPa with a bypass ratio = 0.66, bending
ratio = 0.36 and a bearing stress ratio = 2.09. Crack
growth data for cracks at 10 different fasteners, with
a radius (r) of 2.4 mm, are presented in Fig. 5. (Here
the terminology used was as follows; 7A8L refers to

Fig. 4. Crack growth data in the FAA curved panel tests, adapted from [23,24].
42 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
Fig. 5. Measured crack growth rates, adapted from [25].
cracking in row A fastener number 7A8 where L
refers to the left tip, and R refers to the right tip).
We again see a near linear relationship between
ln(a + r) and the number of cycles.
MSD was also considered by Bakuckas et al. [26]
who tested pristine curved fuselage panels 3 m by
1.7 m with a radius of 1.7 m in the FASTER fixture.
The panel substructure included six frames extend-
ing in the circumferential direction with a 483 mm
spacing, and seven stringers in the longitudinal
direction with a 191 mm spacing. The skin thickness
was 1.6 mm. Both the skin and substructure were
fabricated using 2024-T3 aluminium alloy. A longi-
tudinal lap joint with two skin layers and two finger
doubler layers were located in the middle of the
panel. This fatigue test used a constant-amplitude
load spectrum, with under-load marker cycles, to
enable a fractographic analysis of the crack sur-
faces. MSD cracks were observed emanating from
rivet holes in the lap joint area. The resultant crack
growth versus cycles data, for the six different cracks
presented in [26], are reproduced in Fig. 6 where we
again see that crack growth approximates the
Frost–Dugdale law, as indicated by the log-linearity
of the data shown.
It is thought that, when viewed on a log-linear
scale, the scatter in results presented in Figs. 2–6
can been seen to be a function of the initial flaw size,
potential deviations of the rivet hole radius from the
nominal size, and variations in the local stress
states. The slope of the data is believed to be princi-
pally governed by the applied stress and the local
geometry.
2.2. Related test data
For constant amplitude loading Frost and Dug-
dale [6,7] reported that the crack growth rate (da/
dN) could be approximated as a linear function of
the change in stress cubed (i.e. da/dN / Dr3). This
means that the growth rate at one stress level (r2)
can be predicted from that measured at another
stress level (r1) given a knowledge of the initial flaw
size a02, at this new stress level, and the value of k
(=k1) for the original crack growth (given the same
geometry and spectrum), viz:
r
ð 2 Þ3 ðkN L Þ
a2 ¼ a02 e r1 ; ð2Þ
where k is a parameter that is geometry, material
and load dependent that relates the crack length in
the test at r1 to the number of cycles. The cubic rela-
tionship has also been shown to apply to spectrum
loading also [8].
A near log-linear behaviour has also been seen in
numerous other related tests [8–15] including cracks
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
Fig. 6. Crack growth data in the FAA curved panel tests, adapted from [26].
grown in service, in full-scale fatigue tests, and in
coupon tests under representative service load spec-
tra. Data from Polak [27], Nisitani et al. [28], Kawa-
goishi et al. [29], Caton et al. [30], and Murakamia
and Miller [31] also show that the log crack growth
rate was proportional to the log crack length and
that this relationship holds for short cracks. This
implies log-linear crack growth.
It should also be noted that when using the
Frost–Dugdale law the critical crack size is
determined using a standard fracture mechanics
approach.
The log linear behaviour is also reflected in the
additional examples presented below, including,
for some cases, predictions based on the cubic rela-
tionship, viz:
(a) In the crack growth data for the variable
amplitude F4 wing test program presented in
Fig. 9.2.1a in [32] and adapted here in Fig. 7
for crack growth from a 6.35 mm diameter
hole in a 25.4 · 12.7 mm 7075-T651 plate
tested at both 207 and 248 MPa. In Fig. 7
we also present a prediction for crack growth
at 248 MPa using Eq. (2) and the crack growth
data at 207 MPa. Further examples are pre-
sented in Section 2.3.1.
(b) In the experimental results presented in [33],
for the study of crack growth from a 5 mm
43
diameter hole in a 80 mm wide, 218 mm long
and 1.6 mm thick 2024-T3 aluminium alloy
plate under constant amplitude loading with
a peak stress rmax of 100 MPa with R = 0.1,
see Fig. 8.
(c) In the results of tests [34] performed on cou-
pons made from sheets of clad 2024-T3
101.6 mm in width by 1.02 mm in thickness,
see Fig. 8. These coupons contained a
4.67 mm diameter hole with and an initial
4.2 mm flaw tested under constant amplitude
loading with a remote maximum stress of
approximately 110.3 MPa. In these tests
cracks were initiated from notches that lay at
an angle of approximately 67.8 to the remote
load.
(d) In the experimental results presented in [35]
for a crack growing under spectrum loading
from a 5 mm hole in a 2024-T3 specimen, see
Fig. 8. Note that in [35] crack growth was ini-
tially very three dimensional, and there was
extensive crack tunnelling. Nevertheless, the
functional form of the crack length versus
number of cycles relationship seen in the
results again supports a log linear relationship.
(e) A similar relationship between crack length
and the number of cycles was seen from the
data reported in [28], and adapted here in
Fig. 9, where annealed 0.39% steel circular
44 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50

Fig. 7. Crack growth from a hole in F4 coupon tests, adapted from [32].

Fig. 8. Crack growth from an open hole, adapted from [33–35].

bars, with two different radii r = 6 mm and cracks at a blind hole of diameter c =
3 mm, was used to study the growth of small 0.3 mm tested under rotating–bending.
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
Fig. 9. Crack growth from a blind hole, from [28].
The question thus arises: Can we predict this near
log linear relationship between ln(a + r) and N?
This will be addressed in the next section.
2.3. Predicting crack growth in fuselage lap joint
specimens
Let us now attempt to predict the crack growth
history seen in the fuselage lap joints tests described
in Section 2.1. To predicted crack growth we need
knowledge of the local stress field. Fortunately ref-
erence [5] presented the results of both a strain sur-
vey and a detailed thermo-elastic evaluation of the
stress field in the fuselage lap joint specimens. This
investigation revealed that the stress concentration
factor at the fastener in the top row was approxi-
mately 1.8, and that the stress concentration at the
fasteners was quite localised, i.e. the stress field
decayed rapidly away from the fasteners and was
relatively constant between the fasteners.
A regression analysis of the measured strain data
has shown that the stress field near the fastener in a
lap joint can be described as:
rðx¼rþaÞ ¼ 1:1rð1 þ 1=6ðr=xÞ2 þ 1=2ðr=xÞ4 Þ; ð3Þ
where r (=92 MPa in this instance) is the remote
stress in the fuselage skin, r is the radius of the hole,
a is the length of the crack as measured from the
edge of the hole, and x = a + r.
The focus here will be on the crack growth law
proposed in [8–14], as given in Eq. (1).
45
Using the measured stress field a weight function
technique was used to calculate the stress intensity
factor DK. Thus once c and C are known, equation
(1) can be integrated to determine the crack growth
history.
2.3.1. Determining the exponent c and the
constant C
Frost and Dugdale [6,7] and Barter et al. [8] sta-
ted that c approximately equalled 3 for aluminium
alloys. Indeed, Fig. 7 shows how this approximation
can be used together with knowledge of the crack
growth history at one stress level to predict crack
growth at a different stress level. This approach to
predicting crack growth is discussed in more detail
in [8]. Whilst this approximation may not always
be true, i.e. c  3, and which implies a cubic stress
dependency, Broek and Schijve [36] have shown it
to be a good estimate for 2024-T3 aluminium alloy.
To confirm this approximation we considered two
distinct constant amplitude fatigue tests:
Example (1). Consider the study of fatigue crack
growth in specimens fabricated from 2024-T3
aluminium alloy [37], and tested under constant
amplitude bi-axial loading with R = 0.1. The
adapted results for cases 138 and 136 with a
bi-axiality ratio of 0.5, and rmax = 206.8 and
103.4 MPa in the directions normal and perpen-
dicular respectively, are shown in Fig. 10. The
46 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50

Fig. 10. Crack length (a) versus the number of cycles for a centre crack in a 2024-T3 aluminium alloy panel, adapted from [37].

fitted curve for the crack growth history for test a ¼ 2:60eð0:000369N Þ : ð5Þ
case 136, see Fig. 10, is
Scaling the slope obtained for the crack growth
a ¼ 2:63eð0:0000445N Þ : ð4Þ
history for case 136 by the cube of the stress
For case 138 the corresponding fitted curve, see ratio (206.8/103.4)3 = 8 gives an exponent of
Fig. 10, is 4.45 · (8 · 105) = 3.60 · 104, which is in

Fig. 11. Crack length (a) versus the number of cycles for the edge cracked 2024 T3 aluminium plate, repaired with a seven ply boron epoxy
patch, with rmax equal to 160 and 80 MPa, adapted from [38].
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50 47

reasonable agreement with the value of Fig. 12 presents the experimental results and the
3.69 · 104 seen in the results for test 138 in predicted crack growth history for c = 3 and an esti-
Fig. 10. mated value of C* = 8.33 · 1012. Here,pa is in mm,
Example (2). In this example presented in [12], da/dN in mm/cycle, and DK is in MPa mm. From
taken from Fig. 13.7 in [38], the crack growth his- this we see that the predicted and measured crack
tory was presented for an edge crack in a 160 mm growth histories are in good agreement.
wide and 3.14 mm thick 2024-T3 aluminium alloy To further evaluate predictions made using these
specimen patched with a seven ply (0.889 mm values of C* and c we considered the crack growth
thick) semi-circular uni-directional composite results from the FAA Aging Aircraft program in
patch with a radius of 80 mm. The specimen [39]. Here the behaviour of a 12.7 mm edge crack
was subjected to constant amplitude fatigue test- in a 1.8 mm thick and 100 mm wide 2024 T3 alu-
ing. In one case rmax = 120 MPa and R = 0.1, minium alloy specimen subjected to constant ampli-
and in the other rmax = 60 MPa and R = 0.1,
see Fig. 13.6 in [38]. The resultant crack growth
history is presented here as Fig. 11. In this exam-
ple the calculated exponent for the 80 MPa tests
was 1.85 · 106, see Fig. 11. For the 160 MPa
tests multiplying the exponent obtained for the
80 MPa test by the cube of the stress ratio
(160/80)3 = 8 gives a predicted exponent of
1.47 · 105, which is close to the experimentally
measured value of 1.31 · 105, see Fig. 11.

Having substantiated Frost–Dugdale’s [6,7],

Barter et al.’s [8] and Broek and Schijve’s [36] obser-
vation that the value of c = 3 is reasonable for 2024-
T3 we now only need to determine the constant C*.
To this end consider first the 2024-T3 centre
cracked panel results presented in [33]. The speci-
men was 152 mm wide and 2.54 mm thick and was
tested under constant load amplitude conditions Fig. 13. Experimental and predicted crack growth history for an
with a maximum stress of 60.45 MPa and R = 0.2. edge cracked panel, adapted from [39].

Fig. 12. Experimental and predicted crack growth history for a centre cracked panel, adapted from [33].
48 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
Fig. 14. Crack length a + r versus the number of cycles for the lap joint tests adapted from [5,40].
tude fatigue tests with Drmax = 143 MPa and
R = 0.18 was studied. The predicted, using c = 3
and C* = 8.33 · 1012, and measured crack growth
histories are presented in Fig. 13, and are seen to
be in good agreement.
2.3.2. Predicting crack growth in fuselage lap joints
Having established the values of both c and C*
we first used the weight function method together
with the estimated stress field in the specimen, see
Section 2.3, to compute the stress intensity factor
solution as a function of the crack length and then
integrated Eq. (1) to obtain the crack growth history
for the lap joint specimens described in Section 2.1.
The result of this analysis is shown in Fig. 14 where
we present a plot of the predicted crack length (a)
plus the radius (r) of the rivet against the number
of cycles together with the experimental results for
specimens A9, A10, the Aloha aircraft data pre-
sented in [5], and crack growth data in an early Boe-
ing 737 aft fuselage test [40]. Here we again see good
agreement between the laboratory tests [5,40], as
well as the Aloha data [5], and the predicted crack
growth history for a mean initiating flaw size.2 We
also see that this formulation predicts the observed
near linear relationship between ln(a + r) and the
number of cycles.
2
Allowance must be made for the different times to visual crack
initiation.
3. Conclusions
This paper has attempted to clarify the phenom-
enon of crack growth in riveted fuselage lap joints
and to show that crack growth from the edge of a
hole reveals a near linear relationship between
log(a + r) and N. To this end the paper has shown
that the generalised Frost–Dugdale crack growth
law, i.e. Eq. (1), predicts crack growth history that
is consistent with both simple coupon tests as well
as with fuselage lap joint tests and fleet data. It
was also shown that relatively simple specimens
can reproduce the MSD witnessed in full-scale lap
joints.
It can be seen that adding the fastener radius to
the crack growth history data yields a near linear
relationship between ln(a + r) and the number of
cycles. This behaviour significantly aids in the inter-
pretation of the data. This work helps in the under-
standing of the MSD phenomenon in lap joints, as
well as developing a predictive capability that can
form the engineering framework for maintaining
continued airworthiness of such structural
components.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the useful discussions
with S.A. Fawaz (HQ USAFA/DFEM), and to
Mr. U.H. Tiong and Mr. K. Krishnapillai (Monash
 R. Jones et al. / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 49 (2008) 38–50
University) who performed the crack growth
calculations.
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