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This article examines the possibility of fatigue failure as the result of fatigue crack nucleation and coalescence at stress ranges below the fatigue limit and the large crack threshold where fatigue cracks are expected not to grow. By representing the material as a two-dimensional array of beam elements, the nucleation of nonpropagating small cracks at various material locations is modeled via a statistical approach that considers fatigue crack nucleation by accumulation of damage at randomly distributed weak regions. Once nucleated, the fatigue cracks do not propagate but extend only by linking with fatigue cracks subsequently formed in the contiguous elements. Result of the computer simulation suggests that fatigue failure by crack nucleation and coalescence is feasible, but the cycles-to-coalescence is much longer than the cycles-to-initiation for the first crack. Implications of the results in fatigue life assessment based on the Kitagawa diagram are discussed for TiAl alloys.

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