Stress Intensity Factors of Surface Crack with Undulated Front

Abstract

The stress intensify factor (SIF) of a surface crack having an undulated crack front, which was defined using a csine function based on a semi-circular crack, was evaluated by finite element analysis. The average SIF along the crack front is almost the same if the area of crack is the same, although the value decreases slightly as the complexity of the crack front increases. Crack growth simulations were conductd in order to evaluate the influence of crack shape on growth behavior. The undulated front crack tended to become semi-elliptical in shape during growth. Although the undulated front crack takes a relatively small SIF compared with the semi-circular crack, the growth rate was faster.