Use of Weight Functions to Determine the Stress Intensity for a Cracked Thick-Walled Cylinder

摘要

The use of weight functions to determine stress intensities for cracked specimens is relatively simple, and, while the initial derivation of a suitable weight function for some specimen geometries may be complex, the technique offers substantial benefits. In particular, stress intensities may be estimated for any initial stress distribution, and variations in stress intensity which result from the introduction of residual stress fields may be handled without the need to perform a full re-analysis for each case. The stress intensity at the tip of a crack which grows through a known stress field has been estimated using a weight function technique. The geometry considered is a thick-walled cylinder (Ro/Ri = 1.8) containing a longitudinal crack along the bore surface, and stress distributions corresponding to a variety of loading arrangements are used as examples. (Author)