Stress determination in edge-cracked anisotropic plates by an extension of boundary-collocation method (Q1064170)

The boundary-collocation method, originally developed for plane isotropic analysis, is extended to determine the stress field in the vicinity of the crack tip in edge-cracked anisotropic plates. As one of the applications of this technique, a K-calibration curve is presented for a single edge-crack specimen of the type used in fracture toughness testing, and the numerical result is found to be in good agreement with that obtained by compliance calibration tests over a range of a/w values. For the case where the fibre orientation does not coincide with the crack direction, the strain-energy density theory could be used with this technique to predict incipient fracture. An S-calibration curve is also presented for the test of the critical value of the strain-energy density factor.