ABSTRACT
Fatigue crack initiation is controlled by cyclic stress and yield
strength of the material. Fatigue cracks initiate at positions where
the cyclic plastic deformation is higher than average. Generally, the
cracks initiate either at or near the specimen surface [1]. There is
no generally accepted quantitative description of the crack initiation
process, and consequently, it is quite difficult to perform a numerical
analysis on the crack initiation [2, 3].
