STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS AND WEIGHT-FUNCTIONS FOR SEMIELLIPTIC SURFACE CRACKS IN FINITE-THICKNESS PLATES UNDER 2-DIMENSIONAL STRESS-DISTRIBUTION

A Fourier series approach is proposed to calculate stress intensity fa ctors using weight functions for semi-elliptical surface cracks in Bat plates subjected to two-dimensional stress distributions. The weight functions were derived from reference stress intensity factors obtaine d by three-dimensional finite element analyses. The close form weight functions derived are suitable for the calculation of stress intensity factors for semi-elliptical surface cracks in Bat plates under two-di mensional stress distributions with the crack aspect ratio in the rang e of 0.1 less than or equal to a/c less than or equal to 1 and relativ e depth in the range of 0 less than or equal to a/t less than or equal to 0.8. Solutions were verified using several two-dimensional non-lin ear stress distributions; the maximum difference being 6%.