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International Journal of Fracture 59: R53-R57, 1993. 1993 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

R53

DETERMINATION OF PRECISE GEOMETRIC CORRECTION FACTOR REGARDING STRESS INTENSITY BY A "FORCE BALANCE METHOD"

D.L. Chen, B. Weiss and R. Stickler Institute for Physical Chemistry - Materials Science University of Vienna, W'dhringer Strasse 42 A-1090 Vienna, Austria tel: -222-34361725
For the solution to any fracture or crack growth problems one must know the geometric correction factors regarding stress intensity (K) for the structural crack of interest [1]. This is due to the fact that all of the engineering test specimens must have finite dimensions, resulting in the following modified general stress intensity expression:

K =rm
where t~ is the externally applied stress, a is crack length, Y is geometric correction factor. There are several methods for the determination of the geometric correction factors, such as, finite element method, Green's function or weight function method, etc. However, the geometric correction factors obtained by these methods are usually of limited accuracy [1]. Thus there is a great need for simple methods to obtain more accurate geometric correction factors. Recently, we have established a new and simple method - "force balance method"- for the calculation of precise geometric correction factors [2,3]. Applying this approach, we have derived a new and exact geometric correction factor for a finite width center cracked plate loaded by a pair of splitting forces (see Fig. 1(a)) as follows:

(i)

Y(2a/W) =

2cos-'(2a/W)

(2)

where a is the half-crack length, W is the specimen width. In particular, the application of the proposed force balance method gives rise to a simple and precise geometric correction factor for commonly-used center cracked tension (CCT) specimens (see Fig. l(b)):

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r(2a/W)

1
-

~1 -(2a/W) 2

(3)

The geometric correction factors obtained with the proposed force balance method for the above two cases were found to be in excellent agreement with those reported in the literature [2,3]. In this paper, the geometric correction factor for finite width center cracked plate loaded by uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack, as indicated in Fig. 1(c)), is determined by the force balance method. From [4,5] one can find an exact solution of the stress distribution ahead of the crack tip obtained by means of the Westergaard stress function method for an infinite plate with a crack length of 2a, subjected to a uniformly-distributed stress of ~ as follows (Fig. 2):
(I

o,-~l_(a/x)

2 o

Ix I>a

(4)

where x is a distance from the center of the crack (i.e., from the coordinate origin in Fig. 2). In the same way as in [2,3] for a finite width specimen (Fig. 3, only the lower half of the specimen is schematically plotted) the above stress distribution equation has to be corrected by a geometric factor Y(2a/W): Ix I>a
(5)

6.= Y ~l-(a/x) 2 6

From (5) a mean internal stress ( ~ ) in the remaining elastic material in front of the crack tip can be calculated as follows:

22a f f 'd'x = Y['~[ ~ - 2a l -@" - W -

[ ]W+2a ]

(6)

In the same way as developed in the previous papers [2,3], a force balance equation of the externally applied stress versus the internal stress in the ligament ahead of the crack tip can be written as follows (see Fig. 3): 2a o = (W - 2 a ) 6 . (7)

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Inserting (6) into (7) we can deduce a new and precise geometric correction factor formula for finite width center cracked plate loaded by uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack length as follows:
2a

Y(2a/W) =

(8)

A comparison of this equation with the obtained geometric correction factor formulas for finite width center cracked plate loaded by a pair of splitting forces (Fig. l(a), Eqn. (2)) and for commonly-used CCT specimen (Fig. l(b), Eqn. (3)) is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that for the same finite width center cracked specimen and for a given crack length, the value of the geometric correction factors is the highest for the case of Fig. l(a), is the lowest for the commonly-used CCT specimen (Fig. 1(b)). The geometric correction factor derived for the center cracked specimen loaded by the uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack length (Fig. 1(c)) is just in the middle. These results indicate that for the center cracked specimens with identical configuration and dimensions, the remotely applied stress would result in relatively lower crack tip stress intensity than the uniformly-distributed stress and the splitting forces acting against the crack faces. Acknowledgements: This work is part of a cooperative project between the Fonds zur Forderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Austria (P 8032 TEC) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (C9). The authors would like to thank Dr. A. Hadrboletz for his interest and helpful discussions. REFERENCES [ 1] D. Brock, The Practical Use of Fracture Mechanics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (1988) 243-281. [2] D.L. Chen, B. Weiss and R. Stickler, International Journal of Fracture 55 (1992) R3-R8. [3] D.L.Chen, B. Weiss and R. Stickler, International Journal of Fracture 56 (1992) R19-R22. [4] H.Tada, P. Paris and G. Irwin, The Stress Analysis of Cracks Handbook, Del Research Corporation, Hellertown, Pennsylvania (1973) 5.9-5.12. [5] M. Beghini, L. Bertini and E. Vitale, Engineering Fracture Mechanics 42 (1992) 243-250. 13 November 1992

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ttttttt
W
~ w

"I=
L w
(l r

L,'j
2a
,'3

r~

,,1

(a) (b) (e) Figure i. Center cracked specimen geometry, (a) loaded by a pair of splitting forces acting at the center of the crack; (b) loaded by the remotely applied stress (commonly-used CCT specimen configu~ation);(c) loaded by the uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack length.

(Jyy

_l't

;;,6
A

Figure 2. Schematic representations of an infinite plate containing a crack of length 2a loaded by the uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack length (~), indicating a stress distribution in the elastic material in front of the crack tip (dyy).

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(lyy

/
"-- x
(1 2a I

Figure 3. Schematic representations of a finite width plate containing a center crack length 2a loaded by the uniformly-distributed stress along the whole crack length (o), indicating a stress distribution in the elastic material in front of the crack tip (Cyy).
Y(2a/W)

Equation (2) Equation (3)

/1

2-

"''-!

'

0,0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1,0

2a~ Figure 4. Comparison between the obtained geometric correction factor formulas for three cases shown in Fig. i. Equation (2) Fig.~ l(a); Eqn. (3)+Fig. l(b);Eqn.(8)+Fig . l(c).

Int Journ of Fracture 59 (1993)

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