This article presents the details of crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction of stiffened 2014A Al alloy panels under fatigue loading. One of the objectives of damage tolerant design is the crack growth studies and remaining life prediction. Fracture analysis and remaining life prediction has been carried out for 2014A Al alloy plate panels with concentric stiffeners under fatigue loading. Various stiffener sizes and positions have been considered in the study. Domain integral technique has been used to compute the Stress intensity factor (SIF) for various cases. Remaining life has been predicted by using the Paris model. Based on the studies, it is concluded that remaining life for stiffened panel for a particular size and position can be estimated by knowing the remaining life of corresponding unstiffened panel.

Keywords: Stiffened panel, Fracture analysis, Stress intensity factor, Finite element method, Remaining life, Concentric stiffener.