An Experimental Weight Function Method for Stress Intensity Factor Calibration

摘要

The weight function procedure allows one to convert stress intensity factors K and crack displacement information obtained for one crack configuration and loading into the stress intensity factor solution for the same geometry and another loading. The feasibility of using the weight function idea for a two dimensional case with experimental results is demonstrated in this work. Mode I stress intensity factor K1 measurements obtained by a laser interferometric technique and crack mouth opening displacement measurements were taken for an edge cracked strip subjected to four point bending. These results were used to construct (numerically) a weight function with the aid of a computer program written for this purpose. Results of K1 for the same geometry with two different loading configurations, uniform tension and three point bending (with two different length to width ratios) were computed. These results agree favorably with the known solution and demonstrate that a set of experiments for a single loading can accurately predict the stress intensity factor for any other loading configuration of the same geometry. The advantage of the weight function method would be particulary important if these loading configurations are difficult or impossible to reproduce in the laboratory. (Author)