Effects of the curvature radius of a cylindrical shell on the stress intensity factors of surface cracks

The effects of the curvature radius of a cylindrical shell on stress intensity factors are investigated in circumferential (inner and outer) semielliptical surface cracks in a cylindrical shell. What is new in this paper is to have given: (1) The stress intensity factors for surface cracks in a cylindircal shell are determined by photoelastic technique. (2) By a special method photoelastic slices are handled for obtaining a clear caustic curve, and the stress intensity factors for surface cracks in a cylindrical shell are determined by the caustic method. (3) An approximate equation of curvature correction factor F_c is proposed. (4) Effects of the curvature radius R of a cylindrical shell on the stress intensity factors of surface cracks are obtained. The results of this paper are in fair agreement with already existing analytical results. The approximate equation of curvature correction factor F_c can be widely used for engineering purposes.