AbstractOpening and closure of short cracks has been examined experimentally using small strain gauges fixed to unnotched specimens very close to short fatigue cracks. The results of completely reversed tension‐compression constant amplitude tests are that crack opening stresses decrease with increasing stress amplitude and that crack closure occurs at nearly the same strain as crack opening. In variable amplitude loading the crack is subjected to a low crack opening level resulting from larger cycles. Based on the results of this experimental investigation some simple approximation formulas are proposed with which decrease as well as increase of crack opening levels can be described. Using these formulas it is possible to compute crack opening strains for any load sequence. The findings of the investigations have been merged to build an algorithm for the prediction of fatigue lives to initiation of cracks of technical sizes in case of variable amplitude loading. The improvement in accuracy of life predictions compared to results of an existing damage accumulation concept is demonstrated for two materials and two load sequence