Axial crack propagation and arrest in a pressurized cylinder: An experimental-numerical analysis

The feasibility of using a previously developed crack-kinking criterion to predict crack arrest at a tear strap in a pressurized fuselage was studied with instrumented axial rupture tests of 21 models of an idealized fuselage . A rapidly propagating axial crack, which was initiated from a precrack, k inked immediately upon extension and propagated diagonally until it turned circumferentially and propagated along the tear straps. An elastodynamic fi nite element analysis of the rupturing model fuselage yielded the mixed-mod e stress intensity factors, K-I and K-II, and the remote stress component, sigma(ox). This numerical procedure was also used to predict the crack traj ectories in full-scale fuselage rupture tests. All numerical results agreed well with their measured counterparts regardless of size.