An effective boundary element method for analysis of crack problems in a plane elastic plate

A simple and effective boundary element method for stress intensity factor calculation for crack problems in a plane elastic plate is presented. The boundary element method consists of the constant displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements proposed by YAN Xiangqiao. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip displacement discontinuity element was placed locally at the corresponding left or right each crack tip on top of the constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Test examples (i. e. , a center crack in an infinite plate under tension, a circular hole and a crack in an infinite plate under tension) are included to illustrate that the numerical approach is very simple and accurate for stress intensity factor calculation of plane elasticity crack problems. In addition, specifically, the stress intensity factors of branching cracks emanating from a square hole in a rectangular plate under biaxial loads were analysed. These numerical results indicate the present numerical approach is very effective for calculating stress intensity factors of complex cracks in a 2-D finite body, and are used to reveal the effect of the biaxial loads and the cracked body geometry on stress intensity factors.     

双轴载荷作用下源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹的一种边界元分析

利用一种边界元方法来研究双轴载荷作用下无限大板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹.该边界元方法由Crouch 与 Starfied 建立的常位移不连续单元和笔者提出的裂尖位移不连续单元构成.在该边界元方法的实施过程中,左、右裂尖位移不连续单元分别置于裂纹的左、右裂尖处,而常位移不连续单元则分布于除了裂尖位移不连续单元占据的位置之外的整个裂纹面及其它边界.文中算例说明本数值方法对计算平面弹性裂纹的应力强度因子是非常有效的.该文对双轴载荷作用下无限大板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹的数值结果进一步证实本数值方法对计算复杂裂纹的应力强度因子的有效性,同时该数值结果可以揭示双轴载荷及裂纹体几何对应力强度因子的影响.     

内部压力作用下矩形板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹应力强度因子的一种数值分析

应用一种边界元方法来研究内部压力作用下矩形板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹。该边界元方法由Crouch与Starfied建立的常位移不连续单元和笔者最近提出的裂尖位移不连续单元构成。在该边界元方法的实施过程中,左、右裂尖位移不连续单元分别置于裂纹的左、右裂尖处,而常位移不连续单元则分布于除了裂尖位移不连续单元占据的位置之外的整个裂纹面及其它边界。本数值结果进一步证实这种数值方法对计算有限大板中复杂裂纹的应力强度因子的有效性,同时该数值结果可以揭示裂纹体几何对应力强度因子的影响。     

FATIGUE GROWTH MODELING OF MIXED-MODE CRACK IN PLANE ELASTIC MEDIA

This paper presents an extension of a displacement discontinuity method with cracktip elements （a boundary element method） proposed by the author for fatigue crack growth analysis in plane elastic media under mixed-mode conditions. The boundary element method consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity elements presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements due to the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Crack growth is simulated with an incremental crack extension analysis based on the maximum circumferential stress criterion. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not required because of an intrinsic feature of the numerical approach. Crack growth is modeled by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. At the same time, the element characteristics of some related elements are adjusted according to the manner in which the boundary element method is implemented. As an example, the fatigue growth process of cracks emanating from a circular hole in a plane elastic plate is simulated using the numerical simulation approach.     

Fatigue growth modeling of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite plate

This paper presents a numerical approach of fatigue growth analysis of cracks emanating from a hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads. It involves a generation of Bueckner’s principle and a hybrid displacement discontinuity method (a boundary element method) proposed recently by the senior author of the paper. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general crack growth problem can be solved in a single region formulation. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary. Crack extension is modeled conveniently by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. As an example, fatigue growth process of an inclined crack in an infinite plate under uniaxial cycle load is modeled to illustrate the effectiveness of the numerical approach. In addition, fatigue growth of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads is investigated by using the numerical approach. Many numerical results are given     

A numerical analysis of cracks emanating from a surface elliptical hole in infinite body in tension

This paper deals with such a kind of surface crack problem with an approximately same depth, which is called a liked-plane crack problem. Based on the previous investigations on internal rectangular crack and surface rectangular crack in infinite solid in tension and a hybrid displacement discontinuity method (a boundary element method) proposed recently by Yan, a numerical approach for the liked-plane crack problem in hand is presented. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the numerical approach is simple, yet accurate for calculating the SIFs of a liked-plane crack. Specifically, a pair of cracks emanating from a surface elliptical hole in infinite body in tension are investigated in detail.     

Stress intensity factors for asymmetric branched cracks in plane extension by using crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements

Stress intensity factors are important in the analysis of cracked materials. They are directly related to the fracture propagation and fatigue crack growth criteria. Based on the analytical solution (Crouch, S.L., 1976. Solution of plane elasticity problems by displacement discontinuity method, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 10, pp. 301–343; Crouch, S.L., Starfield, A.M., 1983. Boundary Element Method in Solid Mechanics, with Application in Rock Mechanics and Geological Mechanics, London, Geore Allon and Unwin, Bonton, Sydney) to the problem of a constant discontinuity in displacement over a finite line segment in the x, y plane of an infinite elastic solid, recently, the crack-tip displacement discontinuity element which can be classified as the left and right crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements are developed by the author Yan, X., (in press. A special crack-tip displacement discontinuity element, Mechanics Research Communications) to model the crack-tip fields to more accurately compute the stress intensity factors of cracks in general plane elasticity. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip displacement discontinuity element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the ordinary non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. To prove further the efficiency of the suggested approach and provide more results of the stress intensity factors, in this study, analysis of an asymmetric branched crack bifurcated from a main crack in plane extension is carried out.     

A boundary element modeling of fatigue crack growth in a plane elastic plate

This paper presents an extension of a boundary element method to fatigue growth analysis of mixed-mode cracked plane elastic bodies. The method consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity element due to the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Crack growth is simulated with an incremental crack extension analysis based on the modified maximum strain energy density criterion. In numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not required because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method. Crack growth is simulated by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. At the same time, the element characters of some related elements are adjusted according to the manner in which the boundary element method is implemented. Some numerical results of fatigue growth in a plane elastic plate with a center-inclined crack under uniaxial cyclic loading are given.     

A numerical analysis of perpendicular cracks under general in-plane loading with a hybrid displacement discontinuity method

In this paper, a numerical analysis of perpendicular cracks under general in-plane loading is performed by using a hybrid displacement discontinuity method which consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfied and the crack tip displacement discontinuity elements by the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack tip displacement discontinuity element is placed locally at corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the ordinary non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundary. The present numerical results show that the numerical approach is simple, yet very accurate for calculating numerically stress intensity factors for perpendicular cracks under general in-plane loading.     

Plane-stress fracture testing of finite sheets under biaxial loads

A procedure which combines the Williams series-type stress- and displacement-field expressions at the crack-tip neighborhood with a suitable numerical scheme away from the crack-tip was employed in the determination of the plane-stress fracture properties of four finite 7076-T6 aluminum sheets containing cracks emanating from a circular hole under four biaxial loads. The compatibility of the analytical and numerical displacements at the nodal points along the boundary of the crack-tip neighborhood was utilized in formulating displacement-continuity expressions containing some undetermined constants which solution depends on the nature of the boundary loading conditions. By linear superposition of the displacement due to remote uniaxial load and the displacements due to remotely applied transverse load in the neighborhood of the crack-tip, biaxial-displacement-continuity expressions containing these important fracture properties—namely, the opening Mode I stress-intensity factorK, the nonsingular stress term associated with the stresses in the direction parallel to the plane of cracksA and the integration termB associated with the displacement in this direction—were evaluated. Because no known biaxial testing of this geometry had been reported prior to this research, the analytical procedure was used to select the optimum geometry required in a biaxial fracture test of a finite-sheet specimen containing cracks emanating from a circular hole. This geometric optimization of the specimen guaranteed uniformity of stress all over the volume of specimen and also made the alteration of the existing MTS test fixtures unnecessary. Four square sheets of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy containing a central hole with two collinear cracks emanating radially at the edge of the hole were then fabricated in accordance with the analytically determined geometric requirements. The biaxial fracture test was then conducted under four biaxial load factors (λ) of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5. The fracture toughness obtained in this research was compared with those reported for uniaxial loading of large panels. It was found that there is a good correlation between the reported fracture toughness and this work.     

The solution of a crack emanating from an arbitrary hole by boundary collocation method

In this paper a group of stress functions has been proposed for the calculation of a crack emanating from a hole with different shape (including circular, elliptical, rectangular, or rhombic hole) by boundary collocation method. The calculation results show that they coincide very well with the existing solutions by other methods for a circular or elliptical hole with a crack in an infinite plate. At the smae time, a series of results for different holes in a finite plate has also been obtained in this paper. The proposed functions and calculation procedure can be used for a plate of a crack emanating from an arbitrary hole.     

拉伸载荷作用下单边缺陷-边裂纹应力强度因子研究

利用杂交位移不连续法研究拉伸载荷作用下矩形板中单边缺陷-边裂纹(半圆孔裂纹和半方孔裂纹)问题,给出了这三种平面弹性裂纹问题的应力强度因子的详细数值解。通过半圆孔裂纹问题和半方孔裂纹问题与单边裂纹问题的应力强度因子的比较,发现半圆孔和半方孔对单边裂纹有屏蔽影响。此外,本文的研究结果表明,杂交位移不连续法用于分析平面弹性有限体中复杂裂纹问题的应力强度因子简单且又准确。     

INTERACTION OF THREE PARALLEL CRACKS IN RECTANGULAR PLATE UNDER CYCLIC LOADS

This paper presents a numerical approach for modeling the interaction between multiple cracks in a rectangular plate under cyclic loads. It involves the formulation of fatigue growth of multiple crack tips under ruixed-mode loading and an extension of a hybrid displacement discontinuity method （a boundary element method） to fatigue crack growth analyses. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general growth problem of multiple cracks can be solved in a single-region formulation. In the numerical simulation, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary for each increment of crack extension. Crack extension is conveniently modeled by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. As an example, the numerical approach is used to analyze the fatigue growth of three parallel cracks in a rectangular plate. The numerical results illustrate the validation of the numerical approach and can reveal the effect of the geometry of the cracked plate on the fatigue growth.     

梯度材料中矩形裂纹的对偶边界元方法分析

采用对偶边界元方法分析了梯度材料中的矩形裂纹. 该方法基于层状材料基本解,以非裂纹边界的位移和面力以及裂纹面的间断位移作为未知量. 位移边界积分方程的源点配置在非裂纹边界上,面力边界积分方程的源点配置在裂纹面上. 发展了边界积分方程中不同类型奇异积分的数值方法. 借助层状材料基本解,采用分层方法逼近梯度材料夹层沿厚度方向力学参数的变化. 与均匀介质中矩形裂纹的数值解对比,建议方法可以获得高精度的计算结果. 最后,分析了梯度材料中均匀张应力作用下矩形裂纹的应力强度因子,讨论了梯度材料非均匀参数、夹层厚度和裂纹与夹层之间相对位置对应力强度因子的影响.      

An analytical solution for the stress field and stress intensity factor in an infinite plane containing an elliptical hole with two unequal aligned cracks

The existing analytical solutions are extended to obtain the stress fields and the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of two unequal aligned cracks emanating from an elliptical hole in an infinite isotropic plane. A conformal mapping is proposed and combined with the complex variable method. Due to some difficulties in the calculation of the stress function, the mapping function is approximated and simplified via the applications of the series expansion. To validate the obtained solution, several examples are analyzed with the proposed method, the finite element method, etc. In addition, the effects of the lengths of the cracks and the ratio of the semi-axes of the elliptical hole (a/b) on the SIFs are studied. The results show that the present analytical solution is applicable to the SIFs for small cracks.     

Elastoplastic cracks moving in orthotropic crystals

The stress field, crack-tip plastic zones and total plastic displacement created around an infinite row of collinear elastoplastic constant width Griffith-type strip cracks moving within an orthotropic crystal are considered using the powerful method of dislocation layers. The method is applied with the BCS modelled elastoplastic cracks moving under mode III loading at constant crack-tip velocity, according to the Yoffe model. Simultaneously the analysis provides solutions for a corresponding single crack moving similarly within a finite orthotropic plate and a finite plate containing a surface crack. Analogous results for the corresponding mode I, mode II and purely elastic cracks can be deduced.     

A special crack tip displacement discontinuity element

Based on the analytical solution to the problem of a constant discontinuity in displacement over a finite line segment in the x, y plane of an infinite elastic solid and the note of the crack tip element by Crouch, in the present paper, the special crack tip displacement discontinuity element is developed. Further the analytical formulas for the stress intensity factors of crack problems in general plane elasticity are given. In the boundary element implementation the special crack tip displacement discontinuity element is placed locally at each crack tip on top of the non-singular constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface. Numerical results show that the displacement discontinuity modeling technique of a crack presented in this paper is very effective.     

Stress intensity factors of a plate with two cracks emanating from an arbitrary hole

In this paper, Muskhelishvili complex function theory and boundary collocation method are used to calculate the stress intensity factors (SIF) of a plate with two cracks emanating from an arbitrary hole. The calculated examples include a circular, elliptical, rectangular, or rhombic hole in a plate. The principle and procedure by the method is not only rather simple, but also has good accuracy. The SIF values calculated compare very favorably with the existing solutions. At the same time,the method can be used for different finite plate with two cracks emanating from a hole with more complex geometrical and loading conditions. It is an effective unified approach for this kind of fracture problems.     

一种曲折裂纹尖端单元位移场的构造方法

在扩展有限元的框架内,本文发展了一种构造裂尖单元位移场的方法。整个裂纹沿程两侧的非连续位移场只通过富集变换的阶梯函数表征,在裂尖单元,通过调整形函数使得非连续性严格地消失于裂纹尖端。在避免混合区单元引入不满足单位分解的附加位移项的同时,实现了裂纹尖端单元位移场部分非连续特性的表达。还对裂尖单元的形函数调整原则进行了分析,以平面四节点单元为例提出了两种调整方式。文中裂尖单元中含有曲折裂纹的算例说明了本文方法的有效性和适用性。     

Fracture Analysis for a Frictional Fastener Hole with Edge Cracks in an Anisotropic Plate∗

Abstract

Stress intensity factors are evaluated for a singly or doubly cracked fastener hole with frictional traction in an anisotropic plate, using a special kernel boundary integral equation (BIE) approach. The integration kernel (Green's function) used in this BIE approach has already taken the presence of the crack (or cracks) into account, thus.avoiding the need for element discretization to model the stress singularity at the crack tip. The Green's function employed is that of an infinite anisotropic plate containing an elliptical hole or crack, and subjected to an arbitrarily positioned point force. Several types of normal and shear traction conditions at the pinhole interface are considered. Numerical results are obtained for various geometrical and loading conditions and are compared with known solutions, where available, for their isotropic counterparts.