THE SOLUTION OF AXISYMMETRICAL PROBLEMS NEAR SINGULAR POINTS AND COMPUTATION OF STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS

The computation of the stress intensity factors for axially symmetric domains, in the vicinity of singular points in the framework of linear elastostatics, is presented. It is shown that the decomposition of th e solution in the neighborhood of any singular point, in an axisymmetr ic domain, is identical to the decomposition corresponding to plane st rain condition, and an extraction vector, to be used in conjunction wi th the contour integral method and the p-version of the finite element method, is developed for crack singularities. Although the contour in tegral is shown to be path dependent for axisymmetric 2-D domains, in the limiting case it is valid for the computation of the crack stress intensity factors. Numerical examples support our analysis, extending the application of the superconvergent contour integral in conjunction with the p-version of the finite element method to the axisymmetric c rack case.