Stress intensity factor for an infinite plane containing three collinear cracks under compression

Abstract

The fracture behaviour of multi-cracked materials has become a key issue in fracture mechanics and has received large attention recently. In this paper, an infinite plane containing three collinear cracks under biaxial compression has been investigated. Considering crack surface friction and using complex stress function theory, the exact analytical solution of stress intensity factors (SIFs) for an infinite plane containing three collinear cracks is obtained. The corresponding finite element code of Abaqus is employed to validate the theoretical results, and its results agree very well with the theoretical results. The effects of confining stresses, crack distances and the crack surface frictions on SIFs are analyzed through the theoretical results and the Abaqus code. A photoelastic experiment was conducted to validate the theoretical result about the effect of confining stresses. Considering crack surface friction and using complex stress function theory, the exact analytical solution of stress intensity factors (SIFs) for an infinite plane containing three collinear cracks is obtained. The effects of confining stresses, crack distances and the crack surface frictions on SIFs are analyzed through the theoretical results and the Abaqus code. A photoelastic experiment was conducted to validate the theoretical result about the effect of confining stresses.