Bending of Timoshenko beam with effect of crack gap based on equivalent spring model

Considering the effect of crack gap,the bending deformation of the Timoshenko beam with switching cracks is studied.To represent a crack with gap as a nonlinear unidirectional rotational spring,the equivalent flexural rigidity of the cracked beam is derived with the generalized Dirac delta function.A closed-form general solution is obtained for bending of a Timoshenko beam with an arbitrary number of switching cracks.Three examples of bending of the Timoshenko beam are presented.The influence of the beam’s slenderness ratio,the crack’s depth,and the external load on the crack state and bending performances of the cracked beam is analyzed.It is revealed that a cusp exists on the deflection curve,and a jump on the rotation angle curve occurs at a crack location.The relation between the beam’s deflection and load is bilinear,each part corresponding to an open or closed state of crack,respectively.When the crack is open,flexibility of the cracked beam decreases with the increase of the beam’s slenderness ratio and the decrease of the crack depth.The results are useful in identifying non-destructive cracks on a beam.     

Stresses due to an adhesion crack in T-shaped junction of two orthotropic plates

The general solution of stresses is derived for a T-shaped junction of two thin plates with an adhesion crack.The plates are orthotropic.A shear force is applied on the crack surface.The analysis is based on the supposition that the stresses in each plate can be approximated by a plane stress condition.The results obtained are verified by numerical calculation of FEM.     

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.     

A MOVING CRACK IN A NONHOMOGENEOUS MATERIAL STRIP

This paper considers an anti-plane moving crack in a nonhomogeneous material strip of finite thickness. The shear modulus and the mass density of the strip are considered for a class of functional forms for which the equilibrium equation has analytical solutions. The problem is solved by means of the singular integral equation technique. The stress field near the crack tip is obtained. The results are plotted to show the effect of the material non-homogeneity and crack moving velocity on the crack tip field. Crack bifurcation behaviour is also discussed. The paper points out that use of an appropriate fracture criterion is essential for studying the stability of a moving crack in nonhomogeneous materials. The prediction whether the unstable crack growth will be enhanced or retarded is strongly dependent on the type of the fracture criterion used. Based on the analysis, it seems that the maximum 'anti-plane shear' stress around the crack tip is a suitable failure criterion for moving cracks in nonhomogeneous materials.     

COUPLING EFFECTS OF VOID SHAPE AND VOID SIZE ON THE GROWTH OF AN ELLIPTIC VOID IN A FIBER-REINFORCED HYPER-ELASTIC THIN PLATE

The growth of a prolate or oblate elliptic micro-void in a fiber reinforced anisotropic incompressible hyper-elastic rectangular thin plate subjected to uniaxial extensions is studied within the framework of finite elasticity. Coupling effects of void shape and void size on the growth of the void are paid special attention to. The deformation function of the plate with an isolated elliptic void is given, which is expressed by two parameters to solve the differential equation. The solution is approximately obtained from the minimum potential energy principle. Deformation curves for the void with a wide range of void aspect ratios and the stress distributions on the surface of the void have been obtained by numerical computation. The growth behavior of the void and the characteristics of stress distributions on the surface of the void are captured. The combined effects of void size and void shape on the growth of the void in the thin plate are discussed. The maximum stresses for the void with different sizes and different void aspect ratios are compared.     

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.     

ANALYSIS OF DAMAGE NEAR A CONDUCTING CRACK IN A PIEZOELECTRIC CERAMIC

The finite element formulation for analyzing static damage near a conducting crack in a thin piezoelectric plate is established from the virtual work principle of piezoelectricity. The damage fields under various mechanical and electrical loads are calculated carefully by using an effective iterative procedure. The numerical results show that all the damage fields around a crack tip are fan-shaped and the electric field applied has great influence on the mechanical damage,which is related to the piezoelectric properties.     

Green’s function solution for transient heat conduction in annular fin during solidification of phase change material

The Green’s function method is applied for the transient temperature of an annular fin when a phase change material (PCM) solidifies on it. The solidification of the PCMs takes place in a cylindrical shell storage. The thickness of the solid PCM on the fin varies with time and is obtained by the Megerlin method. The models are found with the Bessel equation to form an analytical solution. Three different kinds of boundary conditions are investigated. The comparison between analytical and numerical solutions is given. The results demonstrate that the significant accuracy is obtained for the temperature distribution for the fin in all cases.     

THE EVALUATION OF STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS OF PLANE CRACK FOR ORTHOTROPIC PLATE WITH EQUAL PARAMETER BY F2LFEM

In this paper, the evaluation of stress intensity factor of plane crack problems for orthotropic plate of equal-parameter is investigated using a fractal two-level finite element method (F2LFEM). The general solution of an orthotropic crack problem is obtained by assimilating the problem with isotropic crack problem, and is employed as the global interpolation function in F2LFEM. In the neighborhood of crack tip of the crack plate, the fractal geometry concept is introduced to achieve the similar meshes having similarity ratio less than one and generate an infinitesimal mesh so that the relationship between the stiffness matrices of two adjacent layers is equal. A large number of degrees of freedom around the crack tip are transformed to a small set of generalized coordinates. Numerical examples show that this method is efficient and accurate in evaluating the stress intensity factor (SIF).     

Thermal-stress induced phenomena in two-component material： part I

The paper deals with analytical fracture mechanics to consider elastic thermal stresses acting in an isotropic multi-particle-matrix system. The multi-particle-matrix system consists of periodically distributed spherical particles in an infinite matrix. The thermal stresses originate during a cooling process as a consequence of the difference αm - αp in thermal expansion coefficients between the matrix and the particle, αm and αp, respectively. The multi-particle-matrix system thus represents a model system applicable to a real two-component material of a precipitation-matrix type. The infinite matrix is imaginarily divided into identical cubic cells. Each of the cubic cells with the dimension d contains a central spherical particle with the radius R, where d thus corresponds to inter-particle distance. The parameters R, d along with the particle volume fraction v = v（R, d） as a function of R, d represent microstructural characteristics of a twocomponent material. The thermal stresses are investigated within the cubic cell, and accordingly are functions of the microstructural characteristics. The analytical fracture mechanics includes an analytical analysis of the crack initiation and consequently the crack propagation both considered for the spherical particle （q = p） and the cell matrix （q = m）. The analytical analysis is based on the determination of the curve integral Wcq of the thermal-stress induced elastic energy density Wq. The crack initiation is represented by the determination of the critical particle radius Rqc = Rqc（V）. Formulae for Rqc are valid for any two-component mate- rial of a precipitate-matrix type. The crack propagation for R 〉 Rqc is represented by the determination of the function fq describing a shape of the crack in a plane perpendicular     

THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR UNDER MOVING LOADS ON THE CRACK FACES

The dynamic stress intensity factor history for a half plane crack in anotherwise unbounded elastic body,with the crack faces subjected to a tractiondistribution consisting of two pairs of combined mode point loads that move in adirection perpendicular to the crack edge is considered.The analytic expression for thecombined mode stress intensity factors as a function of time for any point along thecrack edge is obtained.The method of solution is based on the application of integraltransform together with the Wiener-Hopf technique and the Cagniard-de Hoop method.Some features of the solution are discussed and graphical results for various point loadspeeds are presented.     

Closed form solution and numerical analysis for Eshelby’s elliptic inclusion in plane elasticity

This paper presents a closed form solution and numerical analysis for Es- helby＇s elliptic inclusion in an infinite plate. The complex variable method and the confor- real mapping technique are used. The continuity conditions for the traction and displace- ment along the interface in the physical plane are reduced to the similar conditions along the unit circle of the mapping plane. The properties of the complex potentials defined in the finite elliptic region are analyzed. From the continuity conditions, one can separate and obtain the relevant complex potentials defined in the inclusion and the matrix. From the obtained complex potentials, the dependence of the real strains and stresses in the inclusion from the assumed eigenstrains is evaluated. In addition, the stress distribution on the interface along the matrix side is evaluated. The results are obtained in the paper for the first time.     

Dynamic stress intensity factor K III and dynamic crack propagation characteristics of anisotropic materials

Based on the mechanics of anisotropic materials, the dynamic propagation problem of a mode Ⅲ crack in an infinite anisotropic body is investigated. Stress, strain and displacement around the crack tip are expressed as an analytical complex function, which can be represented in power series. Constant coefficients of series are determined by boundary conditions. Expressions of dynamic stress intensity factors for a mode Ⅲ crack are obtained. Components of dynamic stress, dynamic strain and dynamic displacement around the crack tip are derived. Crack propagation characteristics are represented by the mechanical properties of the anisotropic materials, i.e., crack propagation velocity M and the parameter ~. The faster the crack velocity is, the greater the maximums of stress components and dynamic displacement components around the crack tip are. In particular, the parameter α affects stress and dynamic displacement around the crack tip.     

MESHLESS METHOD FOR 2D MIXED-MODE CRACK PROPAGATION BASED ON VORONOI CELL

A meshless method integrated with linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) is presented for 2D mixed-mode crack propagation analysis. The domain is divided automatically into sub-domains based on Voronoi cells, which are used for quadrature for the potential energy. The continuous crack propagation is simulated with an incremental crack-extension method which assumes a piecewise linear discretization of the unknown crack path. For each increment of the crack extension, the meshless method is applied to carry out a stress analysis of the cracked structure. The J-integral, which can be decomposed into mode I and mode II for mixed-mode crack, is used for the evaluation of the stress intensity factors (SIFs). The crack-propagation direction, predicted on an incremental basis, is computed by a criterion defined in terms of the SIFs. The flowchart of the proposed procedure is presented and two numerical problems are analyzed with this method. The meshless results agree well with the experimental ones, which validates the accuracy and efficiency of the method.     

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.     

Effect of regularized delta function on accuracy of immersed boundary method

The immersed boundary method is an effective technique for modeling and simulating fluid-structure interactions especially in the area of biomechanics. The effect of the regularized delta function on the accuracy is an important subject in the property study. A method of manufactured solutions is used in the research. The computational code is first verified to be mistake-free by using smooth manufactured solutions. Then, a jump in the manufactured solution for pressure is introduced to study the accuracy of the immersed boundary method. Four kinds of regularized delta functions are used to test the effect on the accuracy analysis. By analyzing the discretization errors, the accuracy of the immersed boundary method is proved to be first-order. The results show that the regularized delta function cannot improve the accuracy, but it can change the discretization errors in the entire computational domain.     

SINGULAR SOLUTIONS OF ANISOTROPIC PLATE WITH AN ELLIPTICAL HOLE OR A CRACK

In the present paper, closed form singular solutions for an infinite anisotropic plate with an elliptic hole or crack are derived based on the Stroh-type formalism for the general anisotropic plate. With the solutions, the hoop stresses and hoop moments around the elliptic hole as well as the stress intensity factors at the crack tip under concentrated in-plane stresses and bending moments are obtained. The singular solutions can be used for approximate analysis of an anisotropic plate weakened by a hole or a crack under concentrated forces and moments.They can also be used as fundamental solutions of boundary integral equations in BEM analysis for anisotropic plates with holes or cracks under general force and boundary conditions.     

ANALYSIS OF A CRACK IN A FUNCTIONALLY GRADED STRIP WITH A POWER FORM SHEAR MODULUS

The plane strain problem of a crack in a functionally graded strip with a power form shear modulus is studied. The governing equation in terms of Airy＇s stress function is solved exactly by means of Fourier transform. The mixed boundary problem is then reduced to a system of singular integral equations and is solved numerically to obtain the stress intensity factor at crack-tip. The maximum circumferential stress criterion and the strain energy density criterion are both employed to predict the direction of crack initiation. Numerical examples are given to show the influence of the material gradation models and the crack sizes on the mode-I and mode-II stress intensity factors. The dependence of the critical kink-angle on the crack size is examined and it is found that the crack kink-angle decreases with the increase of the normalized crack length, indicating that a longer crack tends to follow the original crack-line while it is much easier for a shorter crack to deviate from the original crack-line.     

POWER REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION IN BEAM STRUCTURES CONTAINING A SEMI-INFINITE CRACK

Wave reflection and transmission in a beam containing a semi-infinite crack are studied analytically based on Timoshenko beam theory., Two kinds of crack surface conditions： non-contact （open） and fully contact （closed） cracks, are considered respectively for an isotropic beam. The analytical solution of reflection and transmission coefficients for a semi-infinite crack is obtained. The power reflection and transmission ratios depend on both the frequency and the position of the crack. Numerical results show the conservation of power transport. The transmitted energy among various wave modes is also investigated. A finite element method is used to verify the validity of the analytical results.     

THERMAL FRACTURE OF FUNCTIONALLY GRADED PLATE WITH PARALLEL SURFACE CRACKS

This work examines the fracture behavior of a functionally graded material （FGM） plate containing parallel surface cracks with alternating lengths subjected to a thermal shock. The thermal stress intensity factors （TSIFs） at the tips of long and short cracks are calculated using a singular integral equation technique. The critical thermal shock △Tc that causes crack initiation is calculated using a stress intensity factor criterion. Numerical examples of TSIFs and △Tc for an Al2O3/Si3N4 FGM plate are presented to illustrate the effects of thermal property gradation, crack spacing and crack length ratio on the TSIFs and △Tc. It is found that for a given crack length ratio, the TSIFs at the tips of both long and short cracks can be reduced significantly and △Tc can be enhanced by introducing appropriate material gradation. The TSIFs also decrease dramatically with a decrease in crack spacing. The TSIF at the tips of short cracks may be higher than that for the long cracks under certain crack geometry conditions. Hence, the short cracks instead of long cracks may first start to grow under the thermal shock loading.