Thermal Weight Functions and Stress Intensity Factors for Bonded Dissimilar Media Using Body Analogy

2011 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ratnesh Khandelwal ◽  
J. M. Chandra Kishen

In this study, an analytical method is presented for the computation of thermal weight functions in two dimensional bi-material elastic bodies containing a crack at the interface and subjected to thermal loads using body analogy method. The thermal weight functions are derived for two problems of infinite bonded dissimilar media, one with a semi-infinite crack and the other with a finite crack along the interface. The derived thermal weight functions are shown to reduce to the already known expressions of thermal weight functions available in the literature for the respective homogeneous elastic body. Using these thermal weight functions, the stress intensity factors are computed for the above interface crack problems when subjected to an instantaneous heat source.

Author(s):  
George T. Sha

The use of the stiffness derivative technique coupled with “quarter-point” singular crack-tip elements permits very efficient finite element determination of both stress intensity factors and nodal weight functions. Two-dimensional results are presented in this paper to demonstrate that accurate stress intensity factors and nodal weight functions can be obtained from relatively coarse mesh models by coupling the stiffness derivative technique with singular elements. The principle of linear superposition implies that the calculation of stress intensity factors and nodal weight functions with crack-face loading, σ(rs), is equivalent to loading the cracked body with remote loads, which produces σ(rs) on the prospective crack face in the absence of crack. The verification of this equivalency is made numerically, using the virtual crack extension technique. Load independent nodal weight functions for two-dimensional crack geometry is demonstrated on various remote and crack-face loading conditions. The efficient calculation of stress intensity factors with the use of the “uncracked” stress field and the crack-face nodal weight functions is also illustrated. In order to facilitate the utilization of the discretized crack-face nodal weight functions, an approach was developed for two-dimensional crack problems. Approximations of the crack-face nodal weight functions as a function of distance, (rs), from crack-tip has been successfully demonstrated by the following equation: h a , r s = A a √ r s + B a + C a √ r s + D a r s Coefficients A(a), B(a), C(a) and D(a), which are functions of crack length (a), can be obtained by least-squares fitting procedures. The crack-face nodal weight functions for a new crack geometry can be approximated using cubic spline interpolation of the coefficients A, B, C and D of varying crack lengths. This approach, demonstrated on the calculation of stress intensity factors for single edge crack geometry, resulted in a total loss of accuracy of less than 1%.


Author(s):  
S. W. Ng ◽  
K. J. Lau

Abstract In this paper a procedure is developed to assess the “local” accuracy of weight functions for finding stress intensity factors of centrally cracked finite plates given by Tsai and Ma (1989). It is found that the weight functions can be used to calculate stress intensity factors for practical cases, with “local” accuracy being within 6 %. In addition, weight functions generated from two finite element analyses are found to be accurate and may be used to assess new algorithms for finding weight functions.


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