Font Size: 

In this paper the rather complex 3D fatigue crack growth behaviour in aSEN-specimen with an inclined plane of the initial crack under torsion loading isinvestigated by the aid of the programme ADAPCRACK3D and by application of arecently developed 3D fracture criterion. It will be shown that the computationallysimulated results of fatigue crack growth in the FE-model of the specimen are in goodagreement with experimental findings for the development of the spatially twisted andwarped crack faces in the real laboratory test-specimen. Consequently, also for thiscase with a rather complex 3D crack growth behaviour, the functionality of theADAPCRACK3D-programme and the validity of the proposed 3D fracture criterion canbe stated.