ARTICLE IN PRESS

International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx

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International Journal of Fatigue

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft

L. Molent *
Air Vehicles Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, 506 Lorimer Street, Fishermans Bend 3207, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The 1969 in-flight failure of an F-111 wing due to the presence of a rogue manufacturing flaw precipi-
Received 8 May 2009 tated the adoption of the damage tolerance aircraft design philosophy by the United States Air Force. This
Received in revised form 28 July 2009 article compares this flaw to several flaws or initiating discontinuities that led to unexpected failures in
Accepted 3 September 2009
combat-type aircraft operated by the RAAF and found these to be in general an order of magnitude smal-
Available online xxxx
ler. Failure in the RAAF examples considered here were also dependent upon several other design and
production factors in-addition to the initial discontinuity size.
Keywords:
Crown Copyright Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fatigue crack growth
Fractography
Rogue flaws

1. Introduction 2. F-111A in-flight incident

The damage tolerance aircraft design philosophy developed by
the United States Air Force (USAF) accepts the inevitability that
small yet undetectable fatigue initiating flaws or discontinuities
exists in metals manufactured for the fabrication of aircraft struc-
tures [1]. The fatigue growth of these discontinuities is assessed for
each flight critical component under design spectra assumptions. If
a crack is assessed to grow to a critical length within one life time a
suitable inspection regime is imposed or the component is rede-
signed. The introduction of this design philosophy superseded
the earlier safe-life philosophy. This change was precipitated by
the unexpected failure of an F-111A aircraft in 1969 which was
attributed to the presence of a large, and previously undetected,
manufacturing flaw. The safe-life philosophy was abandoned by
the USAF as it was considered unable to deal with the presence
of such manufacturing anomalies.
In the intervening years the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)
has experienced several unexpected failures of aircraft and aircraft
components nominally designed to a safe-life philosophy. In this
article, the size of initiating discontinuities that led to failures in
RAAF F-111C, F/A-18 Hornet and Macchi MB326H aircraft or com-
ponents, either during service or test are quantified and qualita-
tively compared to the flaw leading to the 1969 USAF F-111A
failure. In all but one case, it was found that flaws leading to fail-
ures in RAAF aircraft were physically much smaller than the
1969 F-111A flaw, and in many instances other factors (e.g. poor,
fastener interference, the geometry of the initiating discontinuity,
etc.), contributed to the failure.
* Tel.: +61 3 9626 7653; fax: +61 3 9626 7089.
E-mail address: Lorrie.Molent@defence.gov.au
A USAF Tactical Air Command F-111A 67-0049 was lost in
December 1969. The aircraft was on a training mission from Nellis
Air Force base in Nevada when the incident occurred. The aircraft
had only accumulated 104.5 flight hours from roll-out. During a
pitch-up manoeuvre, the port wing separated in-flight. The crew
were not able to eject, probably due to the wing contacting the
escape module as it pitched up sideways and rolled over. The sub-
sequent investigation determined that a fatigue crack in the lower
wing pivot fitting (WPF) plate (at approximately 432 mm from the
pivot centre line) had caused the fracture of the wing. The fatigue
crack had developed from a forging burst in the D6ac steel forging,
a so-called rogue flaw, and had grown to critical size very quickly,
Fig. 1. Inspections during manufacture had failed to identify the
flaw. The sound wave transmission used during ultrasonic non-
destructive inspection (NDI) had been directed almost parallel to
the flaw surfaces and the energy return, if any was insufficient to
detect the flaw. At the time of wing failure, the aircraft configura-
tion in terms of speed, gross weight and load factor was well below
design limits.
The loss caused the grounding of all F-111s for an extended per-
iod. USAF F-111s had a strict 3 g flight restriction placed on them
until new inspections and testing was completed. The failure called
into question the entire structural lifing methodology used by the
USAF (as well as everyone else at the time). The aircraft had been
designed to a safe-life of 4000 h. When the aircraft reached
4000 h, it would simply be taken out of service. However the
safe-life methodology could not account for rogue-flaws like that
leading to the failure of F-111A 67-0049, and the USAF could not
discount the possibility that other F-111s (or in fact any other air-
craft) may contain similar sized flaws to the accident aircraft, such

0142-1123/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002

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 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2 L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
Fig. 1. Fracture surface showing pre-existing flaw and fatigue growth [21].
was the limitation of the NDI techniques available at the time. In a
watershed decision the USAF abandoned the safe-life design phi-
losophy and developed what came to be known as the damage tol-
erance design philosophy. Basically a designer had to assume the
existence of small, yet undetectable, flaws (of the order of
1.25 mm deep in general or 0.125 mm for fastener holes [1]) in
all ‘‘safety-of-flight” components and ‘‘grow” these to critical size
to determine the life of the structure. If the calculated life was
unacceptable for operations, the location was redesigned to lower
the stresses or a suitable inspection regime would be imple-
mented. A particular difficulty for this process was that the critical
crack size for D6ac was very small at the required aircraft limit
loads (those rare loads occurring once in the life of an aircraft).
The D6ac was developed for superior strength. The increased
strength led to a corresponding decrease in its fracture toughness
(i.e. increase in notch sensitivity). This made it almost brittle in
nature and coupled with the high stresses thus led to the small
critical crack sizes. Engineers at General Dynamics and the USAF
research laboratory at Wright–Patterson developed unique and
unprecedented solutions to manage the F-111. Firstly they bonded
a high-strength boron–epoxy composite patch to the lower WPF’s
surface to decrease the stresses. Secondly, as the brittleness of the
steel led to unacceptably short periods of calculated crack growth
to critical size assuming a standard flaw size, a proof test of each
aircraft was mandated. Here the aircraft was placed into a chamber
and cooled down to 40 °C using liquid nitrogen as a coolant ex-
hausted into the chamber to further lower the toughness and in-
crease the notch sensitivity of the D6ac steel. This became
known as the cold proof load test (CPLT) [2]. The aircraft was then
loaded using mechanical jacks to the proof load conditions of (1.2
times maximum operating loads) of 7.33 g and 3.4 g at two dif-
ferent wing sweep angles. This achieved two benefits; firstly if
large flaws were present they would fail the aircraft within the
safety of the chamber. Secondly, if it did not fail then it could be
assumed that if any cracks did exist they would be smaller than
that assumed during design at standard operating temperatures.
All else being equal, this translated into longer intervals of safety.
These innovations, coupled with stricter inspection requirements
and an additional full-scale fatigue test, recovered the structural
integrity of the aircraft. The interval between CPLTs was chosen
as 2000 flight hours.
Classical theory suggests that cyclic tensile stresses grow fati-
gue cracks. As with most high performance aircraft designs, meet-
ing weight-targets was challenging, and the F-111 was no
exception in this regard. Every component was assessed and reas-
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
sessed to see if weight could be reduced. The demand to reduce
weight was even greater after the wing carry through box was
stiffened. One area that received particular attention was the
D6ac WPF. The upper and lower plates were integrally chemically
milled to the required dimensions. Each plate contained five verti-
cal stiffening elements about 50 mm deep. They were evenly
spaced about the chord of the box, ran back about a meter then
fanned inwards to meet the pivot point. Also spaced along the stiff-
eners were oval cut outs about 50 mm long; these were called ‘fuel
flow vent holes’. To maximize the amount of fuel the aircraft could
carry, virtually every space in the aircraft is a potential fuel cell,
and so with the F-111 the wing and pivot fitting was used to carry
fuel. In case of flight with low levels of internal fuel in the wing,
these fuel flow vent holes were in place to allow any remaining
fuel to be transferred to the root of the wing so that it could be
pumped to the engines. The upper plate also contained these cut-
outs in case of inverted flight. They were also seen as a weight
reduction measure as were the now tapered ends of the stiffeners,
known as the stiffener runouts. The stiffeners where designed to
taper down near the outboard end of the fitting such that the last
40 mm of their travel to the lateral stiffening web was only approx-
imately 7 mm deep.
Any abrupt change in profile will concentrate and amplify struc-
tural stresses. Coupling this with a significant reduction in the stiff-
eners height, from 40 to 7 mm, a potential fatigue problem should
have been anticipated. However reducing over-all weight was the
principle consideration and no cracking was subsequently found
during fatigue testing. As the CPLT was conceived after the weight
reduction program it was not simulated during the wing fatigue
test; in hindsight it should have been subsequently considered.
3. Effective equivalent flaw size
The basis of the size of the flaws considered in the damage tol-
erance design resulted from the work of Rudd and Gray [3,4],1 Be-
rens et al. [5] and Yang et al. [6]. Here a number of fatigue test cracks
were analysed to produce, in each case an Equivalent Initial Flaw
Size (EIFS). The EIFS were derived through back-projection from
the failure life and failure crack size to time zero using a mechanistic
linear-elastic fracture mechanics model. This method has problems
since the resulting EIFS may bear little resemblance to any physical
dimension of the discontinuity that the crack initiated from. (This
was an extension of the earlier Paris et al. [7] proposal for the use
of an ‘effective initial imperfection size’ which was determined by
back-projection of a crack depth at a known life (usually failure)
using da/dN versus K data.) Many authors have shown that the EIFS
values are model, stress and spectra dependent (see for example Fa-
waz [8], Manning and Yang [9], Moreira et al. [10]). The EIFS method
relies on the back-projection of relatively large cracks back to time
zero (i.e. large extrapolation) and therefore is subject to model sen-
sitivities and inadequacies (e.g. short crack effects, limited da/dN
data, limits in the understanding of loads interactions, etc.,). More
recent attempts to define the size of the fatigue initiating discontinu-
ity include the initial discontinuity state (IDS) [11,12], equivalent
crack size (ECS) [13], and EIFS based on the Kitagawa–Takahashi dia-
gram [14].
In an attempt to reduce the influence of the crack growth model
on the resulting initial discontinuity size, the Equivalent Pre-crack
Size (EPS) concept was introduced, e.g. [15]. Here (generally vari-
able amplitude) crack growth data gathered by quantitative frac-
tography (QF) of fractures down to (generally) small crack depths
of approximately 0.01–0.1 mm are back-projected to time zero
using an exponential crack growth relationship, see [16]. (This is
1
Originally called the Equivalent Initial Quality Method [4].
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L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
similar to the process used by Potter and Yee [17] which they
termed ‘‘EIFS”.) One of the advantages of the EPS method of
back-projection to time zero is that it involves very little extrapo-
lation in comparison to the traditional EIFS method. For the mate-
rial and spectra considered, the EPS has been shown to be
independent of stress level and spectra [15]. It should be stressed
that due to the model dependency of EIFS, IDS, ECS, etc., these val-
ues are not interchangeable or related to EPS.
In this article an attempt is made to compare the EPS with the
physical size of the initiating discontinuities for some RAAF in-ser-
vice and test crack growth in combat-type aircraft.
4. RAAF F-111 nose landing strut in-service rogue flaw cracking
During a pre-flight inspection a crack was detected in one arm
of the horizontal brace of an F-111 nose landing gear strut [18].
The strut was manufactured from aluminium alloy 7049-T73.
The crack (Fig. 2) had fractured the arm. Fortunately the strut
had a fail-safe feature – a second arm, thus strut collapse did not
occur prior to the discovery of the crack. The failed cross-section
of the arm was approximately trapezoidal with a thickness of
19 mm and a height that varied between 24 and 30 mm. The area
designated T in Fig. 2 covered approximately 36% of the cross-sec-
tional area, whilst the area subsequently identified as in-service fa-
tigue growth covered approximately 13%. The remainder was
overload fracture.
Metallographic examination revealed that area T was caused by
cracking during the forging process and followed the metal’s flow
pattern in that area. In the fatigue cracked area (F in Fig. 2), regular
progression marks were clearly evident and examples of these are
shown in Fig. 3. Groups of these typically delineated by a larger
progression mark were thought to possibly correspond to specific
landing events. The RAAF estimated that the component had expe-
rienced approximately 1500 landings. The progression marks were
measured using an optical microscope leading to the crack depth
versus estimated landing cycles plot shown in Fig. 4. This proce-
dure provided an estimate of 835 landings which was considered
reasonably consistent with the RAAF usage estimate. From this fig-
ure it can be seen that the growth was approximately exponential
(prior to the on-set of static failure modes), and from this the EPS
was estimated as 0.213 mm by fitting the exponential equation
shown. Had the last measured point been shifted to the RAAF esti-
mate of the number of landings then the estimated EPS would be
smaller. Whilst the 0.213 mm estimate is a relatively large EPS it
Fig. 2. The fracture surface of the failed support arm. The delineated highly
textured area T is the initial area of cracking. The area F is the in-service fatigue
cracking with bands of tearing. The remainder of the failure surface O resulted from
overload [18]. A tear band possibly due to a heavy landing has been arrowed.
Magnification 2.5 approximately.
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
3
Fig. 3. An example of the fatigue pattern considered to be representative of landing
and ground loads. The heavier marks probably represent the landing load (one is
arrowed) with the finer marks from the ground loads [18].
is significantly less than the average depth of area T shown in
Fig. 2. Although, the flaw was large, its shape was not very fatigue
crack-like (i.e. compare Fig. 2 with Fig. 1) and this may have led to
the estimated smaller EPS than its physical size would suggest.
5. RAAF F-111 wing in-service cracking
The first failure of an RAAF F-111 wing occurred during a pre-
deliver CPLT of a wing from aircraft A8-112 in 1981. A second fail-
ure occurred in August 1982 [19] of a port wing from aircraft A8-
129, during its second CPLT from its introduction into service.
The USAF also suffered a spate of failures in the CPLT facility during
negative g loading. Post-failure investigations revealed that fatigue
cracking had occurred in the runout region of stiffener number two
in the upper plate. The upper plate was designed to carrying pre-
dominately compressive loads during flight. Subsequent analyses
shed light on this seemingly new phenomenon. As it transpired,
the 7.3 g positive load which was applied as the last load in the
CPLT resulted in the material yielding in compression locally at
the stress concentration feature at the runout. The surrounding
non-yielded material did not allow the local material to relax
which resulted in it being left in a permanent state of tension. Once
the aircraft started flying subsequent to CPLT the nominally nega-
tive fluctuating loads experienced at the upper plate were seen as
local tensile cycles at the runout allowing fatigue cracks to grow.
Strain surveys of the runout region revealed that strains reached
in excess of 12,000 le at the 7.33 g load level [20].
As part of the CPLT process, many pre-test inspection programs
have been implemented over the years. These inspections are de-
signed to scrutinise problem areas during the service of the aircraft
and before the CPLT is conducted. If cracking is not found in these
NDI tests then the less-frequently applied CPLT is the final process
used to capture undetected cracking and thus prevent failures dur-
ing service. These inspections have found many cracks and high-
lighted new problem areas. For example, cracks were found using
magnetic particle inspection in the stiffener runout two in the
upper WPF of two Australian F-111Cs (A8-148 and A8-109) [20].
These inspections had been conducted at 850 h intervals. These
cracks were excised using electro-discharge machining from the
radius of stiffener runout two. In both cases, the cracks initiated
from corrosion pits and the initial cracking was intergranular
before developing into a more typical fatigue crack as indicated
by typical crack progression markings (see example given in
Figs. 5–7). However, the extent of the intergranular fracture was
only one grain deep and did not contribute significantly to the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

4 L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx

F111 Nose Strut Crack

10

Fatigue Crack Depth (mm)

y = 0.2132e0.0036x
R2 = 0.994

0.1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
No. of Landings

Fig. 4. Fatigue crack depth versus estimated number of landings, adapted from [18].

Fig. 7. Optical photograph of the exposed crack surface showing defined fatigue
crack growth progression marks emanating from two of the three major origins
[20]. The line GG shows the location and direction chosen for the determination of
the crack-growth rate. Magnification approximately 10 times.

Fig. 5. Pitting-nucleated cracks in F-111 A8-148 stiffener runout [20]. Back-

scattered scanning electron micrograph showing abrasion of the surface and
corrosion pits in the central region. Bars are 1 mm.
over-all crack length. The intergranular crack growth probably oc-
curred by a stress corrosion cracking (SCC) mechanism. The crack-
ing in A8-109 started from three separate pits, and the cracks grew
away from the intergranular regions by fatigue at approximately
the same rate before joining to form one large crack. Pit/crack
interaction is shown in Fig. 7. It is notable that in all three cases
of runout cracking investigated the cracking initiated from multi-
ple nearby sites, however there was no evidence of their interac-
tion influencing their crack growth as has been noted for other
cases of multi-site damage (for example see [22]), even though
the cracks initiated quite (about 1 mm) close together.
Using data from the aircraft’s historical Nz-meter records, the
progression marks on some sections of each fracture surface (see
for example Fig. 7) were able to be correlated to the aircraft’s indi-
vidual usage. The crack growth curves derived from the examina-
tion of the fracture surfaces [20]2 are shown in Fig. 8.
From Fig. 8 the crack growth histories appear to be approxi-
mately exponential for A8-109 and -148 and for the latter region
of 129. This feature of the growth has also been noted previously
for lead cracks under spectra loading of this type [16,24]. Also as
the depth of the crack in A8-148 was greater than that of A8-129
Fig. 6. Pitting-nucleated cracks in F-111 A8-148 stiffener runout [20]. Chemical
attack at the surface and the stresses in the region resulted in intergranular
2
cracking. Magnification approximately 960 times. Similar data are available from in-service cracking of the fuel transfer holes [23].

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L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
10
0.0024x
y = 0.363e
R2 = 0.9645
crack depth (mm)
1
0.1
0.01
-500 0 500
Flight Hours (from previous CPLT)
Fig. 8. Crack growth curves derived from matching Nz exceedances to progression marks on the fracture surface [19,20] from the deepest cracks within each runout
specimen. Note the relatively coarse history for A8-129 compared to both A8-109 and A8-148.
at failure, it too would not have survived CPLT. It is also clear that
significant variation in the crack growth acceleration rate (the
exponent of the fitted exponential curves shown in Fig. 8) existed
between the samples. It is considered that this variation would be
influenced by the individual usage of the aircraft, variations in
residual stresses as well as significant local variations in runout
geometries (i.e. runout radii, width and depth). The geometry
changes resulted from production variations as well as a ‘‘confi-
dence cut” involving removal of metal from the radii that was car-
ried out after NDI intended to remove cracks below the NDI’s lower
detection limit.
The interpretation of the EPS for each of the runouts under con-
sideration is complicated by a number of factors including:
(a) The variation in the unknown nucleation time for the crea-
tion of a corrosion pit capable of transitioning to a fatigue
crack.
(b) The variation in the lives of the each wing prior to the last
CPLT that was used to determine the data in Fig. 8. It is
known that [20]:
i. The wing from A8-109 had experienced approximately
3000 h service with the USAF prior to induction into
the RAAF.
ii. The wing from A8-129 failed during its second CPLT,
implying a service life of approximately 2000 h prior to
its last CPLT.
iii. The wing from A8-148 had a total of approximately
3079 h service, and approximately 880 h from the second
CPLT.
(c) Subsequent to CPLT, a magnetic rubber inspection of the
runout region (amongst others) is performed. As surface
cracks with lengths below the resolution limit of the inspec-
tion technique may still exist, an approximate 0.127 mm
layer of material was removed from the runout radius i.e. a
confidence cut. This led to the abrasions visible at Fig. 5. It
should also be noted that this process removed much of
the cadmium coating used for corrosion protection.
(d) The variation in the early configuration of the cracks, from a
quadrant crack for A8-109 and A8-129 to embedded semi-
elliptical cracks for A8-148 [20].
The measurement of the depth of initiating defects or disconti-
nuities is notoriously difficult due to the irregular surface topogra-
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
5
0.0045x
y = 0.0862e
2
R = 0.9811
y = 0.0361e0.0021x
R2 = 0.8187
A8-109
A8-148
A8-129
1000 1500 2000 2500
phy about the origin/s. This proved to be the case for the corrosion
pits from which the cracks initiated in the subject runouts. The cor-
rosion pit depths for the runout samples considered were esti-
mated to be between 0.01 and 0.025 mm at the time of
examination (note these measurements occurred after the confi-
dence cutting procedure) [20]. Without knowing when a corrosion
pit becomes effective at growing cracks an EPS cannot be
estimated.
6. F-111 wing damage enhancement test failure
The fatigue test on ex-RAAF F-111C wing Serial Number A15-5
[25] was called the wing damage enhancement test (WDET). This
wing had accumulated 5418 h in RAAF service. The primary pur-
pose of the test was to enhance existing fatigue damage in the
wing arising from its RAAF service by further ‘ageing’ it in a fatigue
test rig with representative service loading. This was to ensure that
no damage sites that might manifest in fleet wings up to planned
withdrawal date would be missed in the following teardown
inspection of this wing.
The WDET wing failed in 2002, before the required test life had
been reached and this raised concerns over the life of the RAAF
wings. The wing failure occurred at about 2/3 span and the wing
box failed completely in a chordwise direction, with fracture of
the lower wing skin and the five spars (see [25]). The cause of
the A15-5 fatigue failure was attributed to the unexpectedly poor
build quality of the fastener holes in the lower wing skin. This
led to the temporary grounding of the RAAF fleet, which had C
and G-model wings, and then progressive replacement of those
wings with ex-USAF D and F-model wings to restore the fleet capa-
bility. The replacement wings were initially expected to have long-
er lives than that demonstrated by the WDET test wing. This was
substantiated through an additional test known as the F-WELD test
[25]. To underpin the viability and safety of replacement wings,
several actions were specifically undertaken; assess their build
quality [26], estimate their fatigue life and damage tolerance and
the development of an automated NDI capability for condition
assessment to preclude the existence of potential rogue flaws [25].
The A15-5 WDET had revealed a previously unknown fatigue
problem in the F-111 wing. After some initial in situ visual exam-
ination, the failed wing was removed from the test rig and the two
halves of the broken wing were separated. Visual examination of
the lower skin fracture surface showed that fatigue cracks had
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
6 L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
developed in the skin at hole 47 in the aft auxiliary spar, desig-
nated AAS047. One fatigue crack was initially measured to extend
26.7 mm on the forward side of the hole and the other was initially
measured to extend 30.6 mm on the aft side of the hole. A large fa-
tigue crack was also present in the aft auxiliary spar at hole
AAS048, the next one inboard from hole AAS047, and extended
in a chordwise plane through the spar flange and half way up the
web. Another smaller fatigue crack was seen in the centre spar
flange at hole CS044. This crack extended 1.7 mm on the forward
side of the hole and towards the spar web and 3.8 mm aft away
from the spar web. It was clear from the visual examination that
the lower wing skin fracture had caused the total failure of the
wing and that the fracture originated from the fatigue cracks in
the skin at hole AAS047 (there were no other fatigue cracks in
the skin fracture). The other fatigue cracks (in the failed spars)
were linked into the total fracture plane but did not cause the skin
fracture.
A section of the lower wing skin fracture surface containing the
hole AAS047 fatigue crack was cut from the outer side of the fail-
ure. Quantitative fractography was performed on the two crack
surfaces and the results are reported in [27]. The cracks originated
at spiral grooves in the hole bore. These were produced during the
machining at manufacture and the maximum depth of these was
estimated to be 0.025 mm. A picture of the fatigue fracture surface
at hole AAS047 is shown in Fig. 9 with the initial estimates of the
final fatigue crack sizes before fast fracture. The crack-growth rate
Fig. 9. The fatigue cracks at the failure initiation site, Hole AAS047 in the aft
auxiliary spar. Progression marks (tensile crack jumps) caused by the application of
the CPLT loads can be clearly seen (the greyer bands). Evidence of the poor build
quality can be seen along the bore of the hole.
Fig. 10. The growth history from the start of service of the fatigue cracks at the failure initiation site, Hole AAS047 in the aft auxiliary spar (fractography results [27]).
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
result of the QF examination of the aft crack surface is shown in
Fig. 10. There was discernable crack growth from the prior RAAF
service [27]. Note also that the final sizes of the fatigue cracks have
been revised upwards. The load history information for WDET used
in the QF analysis to match the markings on the crack surfaces was
the WDET test load history for the test phase of the A15-5 life, but
for the service phase, the load history was derived from the actual
service usage monitoring data from A15-5. In each phase the CPLT
applications every 2000 h were the primary markers for the QF
(see Fig. 9). The crack growth curves for the cracks about AAS047
are presented in Fig. 10.
An extensive teardown inspection and failure analysis [27] was
carried out on the WDET article associated with and following on
from: the fractography of the WDET failure; the inspection of other
bolts in A15-5; and the build quality survey of A15-5. The areas se-
lected for the teardown were chosen because of the presence of
cracks nearby, the occurrence of an indication from a non-destruc-
tive examination, the presence of fretting product or other indica-
tions of fastener movement during the test, and to achieve a
representative coverage of the span and spars of the wing.
Of the approximate 570 skin and spar holes broken open for
examination, cracks were found in 100 holes, comprising 51 skin
holes and 49 spar holes (noting many holes contained cracks in
both the spar and the skin, and the total number of spar/skin hole
combinations that had cracks was 63). Considering the fore and aft
sides of a hole as separate sites, there were 157 crack sites in total
(noting that some holes had cracks on both forward and aft sides),
and there were of the order of 622 individual cracks in total since
multi-site crack initiation was common, where the typical crack
configuration involved multiple cracks initiating down the bore
of the hole on either the forward and aft side or one side alone.
Typically groups of cracks on either side of the hole coalesced into
a single large crack as they grew. Individual cracks were measured
with depths ranging from 0.01 mm to 30.6 mm (the failure crack).
Most of the cracked holes were machined for Taper-lokTM fasteners,
but these were assessed as having low levels of interference [26]
indicative of poor hole preparation and fastener fitting.
In an attempt to correlate the surface roughness with the ob-
served crack growth, the surface roughness was measured as an
RMS value along the hole bore (rather than around the circumfer-
ence which may have been more appropriate. This was due to a
limitation of the measuring equipment) [28]. In many holes regular
spiral score marks were observed (seen in Fig. 9). These appeared
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx 7

to have been caused by a poor (blunt), damaged or inappropriately
used tapered reamer. The holes used for the Taper-lokTM fasteners
require a precisely reamed tapered hole. These spiral score marks
tended to be regular, and in some cases, holes with such features
were observed to have many (up to 20) small cracks emanating
from these score marks along the hole bore. No correlation be-
tween the measured RMS roughness reading (down the hole) and
the crack-growth rate was found, nor did the RMS value correlate
to the small sample of derived EPS values. It was concluded that
this RMS roughness value, derived from the over-all surface profile
and measured along the bore instead of circumferential, was not
indicative of the severity of the discontinuities that initiated crack-
ing or the early crack growth. However, a strong correlation was
found between crack-growth rate and interference level [28].
As can be seen from Fig. 10 the growth of the cracks leading to
failure was approximately exponential up to the point of the on-set
of static modes. From this data the largest EPS was estimated as
0.0099 mm. This is significantly smaller than the measured depth
of the spiral grooves from which the cracks initiated, which may
have been expected since the groove were relatively (to the size
of an initiating crack) broad with shallow radii at their bases. It ap-
pears that the combination of high stress and low levels of interfer-
ence led to the wide spread cracking and in the case of the crack
that failed the wing, this combination rather than the apparent
mechanical severity of the spiral groves proved critical. Of course
the presence of the spiral grooves did influence the level of inter-
ference produced by the Taper-lokTM fastener, making the hole act
more like an open hole rather than a filled one and in so doing rais-
ing the stresses at the root of the grooves.
penetrated the rear surface of the flange, Fig. 12. The hole was in-
tended to have been blind. This penetration had occurred in the
central region of the hole and corresponded to the centre of the ta-
pered end of the drill used to machine the hole. The cracking had
initiated at the resultant tapered base of the hole between where
the hole penetrated the back face of the flange, and the main bore
of the hole (Fig. 12). Cracking had occurred on either side of the
penetration, roughly in the plane perpendicular to the length of
the spar boom with the cracking on either side being slightly offset.
The line of crack initiation in the lower side of the hole had started
from the base of a long step in the surface of the tapered end of the
hole. Providence dictated that the step produced by the fastener
hole drilling was aligned approximately perpendicular to the prin-
cipal loading direction. The depth of this step was estimated to be
approximately 0.22 mm [30]. It was postulated [30] that the stress
concentration effect of this notch, coupled with that of the hole and
low interference of the fastener, contributed to the rapid crack-
growth rate. Further, teardown inspection of the recovered star-
board wing revealed the presence of other fatigue cracks, including
at the mirror location to the port wing failure site, generally these
cracks could be attributed to poor hole machining quality.
With the aid of the load history from the aircraft’s Nz meter, the
growth pattern on the fatigue fracture surfaces of two holes was

7. Macchi

On the 22nd of November 1990 RAAF Macchi aircraft A7-076

was observed by other pilots in the vicinity to suffer a wing failure
during an air combat manoeuvre. Examination of the wreckage
recovered from the sea disclosed that the port wing had failed when
the lower aluminium alloy 7075 T6 spar boom broke as the result of
a large fatigue crack [29]. The cracking was found to have initiated
from a machining detail in the base of a flange fastener hole, Fig. 11.
This defect had the effect of introducing a severe notch into the fas-
tener hole. Examination of the recovered starboard wing revealed
further fastener hole cracking. All spars in the RAAF fleet had been
replaced in a life extension program however a fatigue test of the
new configuration had not been conducted.
Examination of the DeutschTM fastener hole (denoted D17) from
which the fatigue crack initiated revealed that the hole had been
drilled though the flange to a depth where the drill tip had just

Fig. 11. Fracture surface of A7-076 lower spar cap. Note the fatigue progression Fig. 12. Detailed view of the port wing D17 hole. The regions of initiation both
marks propagating from the upper blind fastener hole (upper left hand side). above and below the hole are indicated.

Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
8 L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
Aircraft A7-076 Boom Failure
100
Crack Depth (mm)
10
0.1
0 500
Fig. 13. Crack growth data from both the largest crack found in the port and starboard wings from A7-076 (lower ligament).
interpreted through QF. The critical hole from the port wing and
the largest of the starboard cracks were investigated to establish
their growth rates, Fig. 13 [30]. From this figure it can be seen that
the growth was approximately exponential (prior to the on-set of
static failure modes) and the crack-growth rates of these port
and starboard holes, which were at about the same outboard loca-
tions on the spars were similar. The determining factor in the crit-
icality of these holes can be seen to have been dependant upon the
size of the initiating discontinuity. The EPS for the port D17 holes
was estimated to be 0.129 mm (Fig. 13) which is in reasonable
agreement with the measured step depth at the base of this hole,
and the EPS of the starboard hole crack, 0.023 mm was a reason-
able estimate of the depth of the sharp score in this hole from
which this crack initiated.
8. F/A-18 bulkhead corrosion pit crack
A wealth of crack growth information exists from F/A-18 Hornet
full-scale fatigue tests as well as coupon fatigue tests, see for exam-
ple [15] where data from 364 cracks is considered. Fatigue crack
initiation in the 7050-T7451 aluminium alloy of the F/A-18 is dom-
inated by the presence of chemically induced etch pits [15]. All fas-
tener holes in the F/A-18 contain high interference fit fasteners
which, given their correct fitment produce good fatigue resistance
in the holes. This in combination with optimal design practice and
the use of complex, integrally-stiffened components has led to
many of the relatively shallow radii details being more critical than
the holes. This inturn has focused attention on the surface condi-
tion of these radii, where it has been found that very small etch pits
initiate the fatigue cracking. These pits are produced by a chemical
cleaning treatment that includes acid pickling prior to the applica-
tion of the corrosion preventative ion vapour deposited (IVD) alu-
minium treatment. Components treated in this fashion include the
three centre section bulkheads to which the wings are attached.
The mean EPS of these pits is approximately 0.01 mm, which is
in close agreement to their measured depths [15]. An EPS-like
mean size of approximately 0.01 mm was also derived from initiat-
ing discontinuities in the bores of fastener holes in 7475-T 7651
specimens [17] where testing of coupons without fasteners was
carried out.
One of the more unusual failures investigated occurred at the
forward mould line flange (MLF) of the Y488 wing attachment
bulkhead just below the lower wing attachment lug [31] (see
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
y = 0.1292e0.0027x
R2 = 0.974
y = 0.0023e0.0039x
R2 = 0.994
Hole D17aft
Hole D17 fwd
1000 1500 2000 2500
Flights
Fig. 14) during fatigue testing as part of the Flaw IdeNtification
through Application of Loads (FINAL) program [32]. In this program
several centre fuselage sections of ex-service F/A-18 aircraft have
been loaded in a test rig under a modified mini-FALSTAFF spectrum
until each of the bulkheads failed.
In one of the bulkheads tested, an area not affected by the pick-
ling process failed. The failure was from a fatigue crack that initi-
ated from a corrosion pit that was located in the forward-inboard
edge of the forward flange of the rear most (Y488) bulkhead. The
corrosion pit was large and was located in an area where the sur-
face had been peened to improve its fatigue resistance. The pit had
extended beyond the effect of the production peening in the in-
board face of the forward flange adjacent to the forward edge of
the flange. Its depth was measured to be 0.44 mm. Fig. 15 shows
a view of this crack denoted C1 near its origin highlighting the cor-
rosion pit. Examination of the peening on the inboard surface
showed that it had been poorly carried out. A consequence of the
peening is that it removes the IVD coating leaving the surface pro-
tected only by the paint, which in general adheres poorly to the
peened surface compared to the IVD surfaces. The inboard surface
in particular showed little evidence of the surface deformation that
would be required to impart an effective residual compressive
stress layer. As this particular fuselage section had been stored out-
doors for an extended period prior to testing, the absence of the
IVD coating and the poorly adherent paint in this area appears to
have promoted local crevice corrosion.
Close examination of the fatigue crack surface of C1 indicated
that a repeating pattern indicative of repeating block loading ex-
isted. This allowed the crack growth curve shown in Fig. 16 to be
derived. Once again the crack growth appears to be approximately
exponential. The estimate of the EPS was 0.0077 mm which is sig-
nificantly less than the measured depth of the corrosion pit. This
corrosion pit was physically large in comparison to other initial
flaws seen in F/A-18 structure [15]. However, assuming an expo-
nential crack growth model (as has been seen on other F/A-18
7050-T 7451 parts etc., [16]), it is seen that the corrosion pit was
ineffective as a fatigue initiator in comparison to a crack of a sim-
ilar size.
The reason for the ineffectiveness of the large corrosion pit may
be one or a combination of several factors:
1. The corrosion pit was not crack-like (i.e. approximately semi-
circular in shape) and the pit was large in its thickness, which
is very unlike a fatigue crack. The large thickness and inefficient
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
Fig. 14. View of the failure at the RHS outboard flange, looking inboard. The
location of the fatigue crack that caused the failure has been highlighted.
shape led to fatigue initiation at many positions, both above and
below the final crack plane and also around the boundary of the
pitting, which led to interference between these locally small
cracks, a very rough initial crack surface (when they joined)
and an initially ineffective crack boundary. These factors are
considered to help retard early crack growth from large
discontinuities.
2. It has been observed that while cracks are small (<1 mm) in this
material (AA7050-T 7451 thick section plate) the crack-growth
rate from initiation to a small size can vary markedly [33]. The
corrosion pit may not have been in optimal location to grow a
fast crack.
It has generally been found that corrosion of the 7050-T 7451
centre section of the F/A-18 has not been the cause of crack initia-
tion. There have been a few exceptions, but generally the almost
pure coating of aluminium in the form of the IVD layer over the
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
9
Fig. 15. View of C1 showing the corrosion pit at the origin of fatigue growth. The
shape outlined and the arrow points to is the corrosion pit.
base material prevents corrosion of the substrate. Furthermore, it
has been found, as noted above, that cracks usually grow from
the etch pits formed during the IVD coating procedure. These pits
are present at the start of service in the critical location so that
prior to the generation of corrosion in-service these pits can initi-
ate crack growth. So cracks that eventually may grow from corro-
sion pits, that may be physically larger than the etch pits, do not
cause failure because they have much less time to grow compared
to those from the etch pits. In the present case, the peening re-
moved the protective layer of aluminium and effectively removed
the etch pits that cracks usually grow from. The removal of the pro-
tective layer was one contributing cause of the corrosion. The paint
applied after the peening operation did not adhere very well to the
peened surface allowing the environment to attack the peened sur-
face. It is probable that when the centre section was removed from
the aircraft the paint was also accidentally removed. The poor
quality of the peening may have had an influence on this since poor
quality peening results in laps and folds that can absorb contami-
nants that prevent the paint coating from adhering to a surface.
9. Concluding discussion and remarks
Several observations can be drawn for the assessment
conducted:
a. The failure of the USAF F-111A 67-0049 would not have
been prevented by the adoption of the damage tolerance
design philosophy. The incident flaw of approximately
12 mm depth was far in excess of the initial flaw assumption
specified [1]. A flaw of this size, when missed during produc-
tion inspection and testing (i.e. a failure of process) will
manifest itself through early failure. A large flaw was
detected in the nose strut of a RAAF F-111, however its shape
was not very crack-like (i.e. semi-circular) compared to 67-
0049, and was in a low stressed area in a fail-safe component
enabling the strut to experience approximately 800–1500
landings before detection (a relatively small fraction of the
design life).

10 L. Molent / International Journal of Fatigue xxx (2009) xxx–xxx
10
Crack Depth (mm)
1
0.1
0.01
0 10
Fig. 16. Crack growth curve for the Y488 bulkhead corrosion pit initiated crack. Each point represents one block of the mini-FALSATFF spectrum.
b. The initiating discontinuities in the other RAAF examples
considered here are an order of magnitude physically smal-
ler than the flaw in F-111A 67-0049 and the initial flaw sizes
specified in the damage tolerance approach [1].
c. Failure in the RAAF examples considered here are dependent
upon factors in-addition to the initial discontinuity size,
including its geometry, residual stresses, poor fastener inter-
ference (see also [34]) and hole quality (see also [17]),
absence or removal of corrosion preventative schemes, poor
shot peening as well as high operational stresses.
d. EPS appears to be a reasonable correlating parameter for
crack growth, particularly if the initiating discontinuity itself
is crack-like in form (i.e. approximately semi-circular).
e. The crack growth history of the RAAF cracks considered
were all approximately exponential in nature.
f. The only practical way of determining the extent of potential
critical initiating defects with some certainty is to conduct
fatigue testing of ‘‘as production manufactured” specimens
under realistic loading (which includes rare loads like the
CPLT).
g. As evident from this investigation rogue flaws are rare, and
those leading to failure are rarer still. The rogue flaws
reported herein were limited to forging deficiencies.
10. Conclusions
A number of fatigue cracks leading to failure of RAAF aircraft
and aircraft components have been assessed. In all but one case,
the initiating defects were found to be physically much smaller
than the defect that led to failure in USAF F-111A wing that gave
rise to the adoption of the damage tolerance design philosophy
by the USAF. The crack growth of the RAAF defects were found to
be near-exponential and their initial size well approximated by
the equivalent pre-crack size method if their geometry were
approximately semi-circular (i.e. crack-like). It was also found that
numerous other factors in-addition to the size of the initiating de-
fect contributed to their growth. Some of these factors included the
geometry of the initiating defect, residual stresses, poor manufac-
turing processes, poor fastener interference, absence or removal of
the corrosion preventative scheme, poor shot peening, as well as
high operational stresses.
Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002
ARTICLE IN PRESS
F/A-18 Y488 Corrosion Pit Cracking
y = 0.0077e0.0657x
R2 = 0.9909
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
No. of Spectrum Blocks
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Please cite this article in press as: Molent L. Fatigue crack growth from flaws in combat aircraft. Int J Fatigue (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.09.002