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This paper reports on the evolution of cracks in the cylinder heads of a large V8 Diesel engine during cyclic engine tests. The observations are compared with the predictions of a lifetime model for combined thermo-mechanical (TMF) and high cycle fatigue (HCF) loading, which is based on a fracture mechanics analysis of microcrack growth in viscoplastic solids and assumes that the crack advance per cycle is proportional to the cyclic crack tip opening displacement. Since the material of the cylinder heads, the cast iron EN-GJV450, exhibits the typical features of cast iron, namely pressure dependence of the yield stress, dilatancy and tension-compression asymmetry, the Gurson model is applied and combined with the viscoplastic Chaboche model. This constitutive model together with the lifetime model is implemented into a finite element code as a user defined material routine. Published model parameters for the considered cast iron are used to carry out the simulation of the engine test.

A complete thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) life prediction methodology is developed for predicting the TMF life of cast iron cylinder heads for efficient heavy duty internal combustion engines. The methodology uses transient temperature fields as thermal loads for the non-linear structural finite-element analysis (FEA). To obtain reliable stress and strain histories in the FEA for cast iron materials, a time and temperature dependent plasticity model which accounts for viscous effects, non-linear kinematic hardening and tension-compression asymmetry is required. For this purpose a unified elasto-viscoplastic Chaboche model coupled with damage is developed and implemented as a user material model (USERMAT) in the general purpose FEA program ANSYS. In addition, the mechanism-based DTMF model for TMF life prediction developed in Part I of the paper is extended to three-dimensional stress states under transient non-proportional loading conditions.