IMPROVED WEIGHT-FUNCTIONS FOR INFINITELY LONG AXIAL AND CIRCUMFERENTIAL CRACKS IN A CYLINDER

The goal of this paper is to derive an accurate analytical representat ion of the weight functions for infinitely long axial and circumferent ial cracks in a cylinder, based on available numerical data for the ca se of a crack face loading by a pair of concentrated forces. The analy sis is restricted to inner surface cracks in a cylinder having the rat io of wall thickness to internal radius of 0.1. Although the reference finite-element results are believed to be rather accurate, they are f ound to deviate from the well-known asymptotic behaviour of the weight function when approaching the crack tip. This inaccuracy of the origi nal numerical solution is eliminated by applying the weight function t echnique. The resulting weight functions are represented in an analyti cal form that enables their efficient integration for an arbitrary cra ck face loading. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.