Liljedahl, C. D. M.Zanellato, O.Fitzpatrick, M. E.Lin, J.Edwards, L.2010-01-112010-01-112010-04C.D.M. Liljedahl, O. Zanellato, M.E. Fitzpatrick, J. Lin, L. Edwards, The effect of weld residual stresses and their re-distribution with crack growth during fatigue under constant amplitude loading, International Journal of Fatigue, Volume 32, Issue 4, April 2010, Pages 735-7430142-1123http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.10.012http://hdl.handle.net/1826/4133In this work the evolution of the residual stresses in a MIG-welded 2024-T3 aluminium alloy M(T) specimen during in situ fatigue crack growth at constant load amplitude has been measured with neutron diffraction. The plastic relaxation and plasticity-induced residual stresses associated with the fatigue loading were found to be small compared with the stresses arising due to elastic re-distribution of the initial residual stress field. The elastic re-distribution was modelled with a finite element simulation and a good correlation between the experimentally-determined and the modelled stresses was found. A significant mean stress effect on the fatigue crack growth rate was seen and this was also accurately predicted using the measured initial residual stresses.enNeutron diffractionResidual stressesFatigueWeldingFinite element analysisArticle