The present work is devoted to simulation of fatigue crack initiation for cyclic loading within the nominal elastic regime. It is assumed that damage growth occurs due to action of mean stress and its fluctuations induced by crystalline grain inhomogeneity and the free boundary effect. The macrocrack initiation corresponds to a critical value of accumulated damage. The modelling of damage growth is supported by Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) apparatus using coherent laser light.