Fracture initiation at the root of a blunt flaw: description in terms of K-r-L-r failure assessment curves

In assessing the effect of a defect on the integrity of an engineering stru cture, considerable use is now being made of failure assessment diagrams. R ecent work, focused on the effects of a sharp crack, has highlighted the ge ometry dependence of the failure assessment curve when it is expressed in t erms of normalised stress intensity (K-r) and normalised limit load (L-r) p arameters. This article extends the earlier work, in that it quantifies the geometry dependence of the failure assessment curve for the case of a blun t flaw, with K-r now being defined in terms of an effective K parameter, as if the flaw were a sharp crack. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.