Prediction of the longitudinal crack behaviour of stiffened curved panels

The purpose of this study is to present a simplified semi-analytical method ology to predict the behaviour of longitudinal cracks in cracked stiffened curved panels with frames. Pressure loading acting on the longitudinal crac ks induces geometrical non-linearity due to large deflections of crack edge s. This methodology is based mainly on the application of "bulging" coeffic ients to stress intensity factors taken from a numerical model of a stiffen ed cracked flat panel in order to get the crack driving force of the curved panel. This flat model must be geometrically similar to the curved panel. The advantage of the method is the reduced calculation time compared with a numerical model of the cracked stiffened curved panel, including frames. A nalysis of the results shows a highly satisfactory correlation between pred iction by calculation and experimental data. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.