ON THE POST-PROCESSING OF DATA OBTAINED FROM CRACKED COMPONENTS

The use of a simple singular value decomposition (SVD) technique to po st-process far-field data from cracked components is discussed. The te chnique employs the series expansion for stress or displacements ahead of the crack tip, which is available for a wide range of configuratio ns. The use of higher-order terms, necessary for the post-processing, is beneficial for two reasons: (a) it permits the abstraction of the m aximum usable amount of information; (b) it gives a better understandi ng of the fracture mechanics, especially regarding crack tip plasticit y and dynamic propagation. Several numerical cases are examined and a comparison is made with analytical results, permitting an evaluation t o be made of the pure numerical error in the post-processing.