THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS OF A STEEL PLATE

Abstract

This paper presents the FEM and numerical approaches of determining the stress intensity factors of a steel plate having a central elliptical cut-out subjected to different pressures. The failure of cracked components depends on the stresses in the crack tip vicinity. The singular stress contribution is characterized by the stress intensity factor K. For this analysis, a small initial crack was modelled. Each of the stress intensity factors correspond to a crack propagation method. For this analysis, a solid element type with 8 nodes was used, with quadrilateral and triangular elements. Around the crack tip a finer mesh was applied for better results. The first analysis that was run was a static analysis. After that a path and a new coordinate system corresponding to the crack tip were defined and used to determine the stress intensity factors. Then a percentage error can be calculated by using the results obtained in ANSYS and the numerical ones.