STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS FOR SEVERAL GROUPS OF EQUAL AND PARALLEL CRACKS IN FINITE PLATES

Several groups of equal and parallel 2D cracks in finite width plates subjected to remote tensile loading have been studied. Formulae far ca lculating the stress intensity factors of these crack configurations h ave been proposed from the finite element analysis, and the difference between the formulae and the finite element results is smaller than 3 %. On this basis, the influence of crack interactions on stress intens ity factors (SIF) is discussed, and it can be seen that interaction be tween multiple cracks could produce either strong enhancement or shiel ding effects on the SIF depending on the crack positions and lengths.