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Photoelastic determination of stress-intensity factors

Paper describes several methods for calculating the stress-intensity factor from the photoelastically determined stress distributions near the tip of a notch

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Abstract

The increasing number of analytical and numerical solutions for the crack-tip stress-intensity factor has greatly widened the scope of application of linear elastic fracture-mechanics technology. Experimental verification of a particular solution by elastic stress analysis is often a necessary supplement to provide the criteria for proper application to actual design problems.

In this paper, it is shown that the photoelastic technique can be used to obtain rather good estimates of the stress-intensity factor for various specimen geometries and loading conditions. Treated are the following cases: wedge-opening load specimen, several notched rotating-disk configurations, and a notched pressure vessel. A sharp crack is simulated by a relatively narrow notch terminating in a root radius of 0.010 in or less. Stress distributions along the section of symmetry ahead of the notch tip are obtained using three-dimensional frozen-stress photoelasticity. The results are used to determine the stress-intensity factor, cK I , by three methods. Two of these are based on Irwin's expressions for the elastic stress field at the tip cf a crack, and the other is a result of Neuber's hyperbolic-notch analysis. Agreement, with available analytical solutions is good.

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Abbreviations

a :

radius of hole, in

b :

outside radius of disk, in

B :

thickness of WOL specimen, in

c :

distance from hole center to notch tip, in

d :

minimum section ahead of notch tip, in

D i :

inside diameter of notched pressure vessel, in

h :

length of notch,h=c-a, in

H :

half height of WOL specimen, in

K I :

stress-intensity factor for Mode I type of displacement, psi-in. 1/2

N :

rotational speed, rpm

p :

pressure, psi

P :

load, Ib

R n :

notch-root radius, in

t :

thickness of disk, in

T :

wall thickness of pressure vessel, in

x, y, z :

Cartesian-coordinate system

r, θ, z :

cylindrical-coordinate system

σ x , σ y , σ z :

stress components in Cartesian system

σ r , σ θ , σ z :

stress components in cylindrical system

σ n :

nominal stress, psi

σ y max :

maximum stress at the notch tip, psi

μ:

Poisson's ratio

ρ:

mass density, 1b sec2/in.4

ω:

rotational speed, radians/sec

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Marloff, R.H., Leven, M.M., Ringler, T.N. et al. Photoelastic determination of stress-intensity factors. Experimental Mechanics 11, 529–539 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02329095

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