Issue 32

N. Bisht et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 32 (2015) 1-12; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.32.01 7 Mode III stress intensity factor in the present investigation is not considered because the thickness of the plate in FE analysis is taken as unity. However, the three dimensional effect or plate thickness effect on the stress intensity factors can be seen in the work of Kotousov et al. [33, 34]. In the present FE analysis, out of balance convergence and degree of freedom increment convergence criteria have been applied. The tolerance level has been taken as 0.001. These criteria are well documented in the ANSYS manual [35]. R ESULTS AND DISCUSSION Stress Intensity Factor he stress intensity factors computed were normalized by K 0 given for single edge cracked plate under uniform tension [30].   0 a K a f W    (19) where σ is the applied stress, a is the crack length and   a f W is the geometric correction factor given as:   2 3 4 1.12 0.23 10.56 21.74 30.42 a a a a a f W W W W W                              (20) In the present investigation, a = 10 mm, W = 80 mm. Thus geometric correction factor becomes   a f w  1.13 (21) and K 0 = 400.57 MPa mm  Fig. 8 shows the effect of crack offset distance H on the normalized stress intensity factors. From Fig. 8 it can be seen that normalized mode I SIF (K I /K 0 ) for H=0.5 mm reduces drastically to about 66% value as compared to single edge crack. As the crack offset distance increases beyond H=0.5 mm the normalised mode I stress intensity factor starts increasing, and its value becomes 95% of single edge crack when H becomes 20 mm. So, it can be said that there is a shielding effect due to proximity of cracks due to which mode I SIF decreases as compared to single edge crack, however this shielding effect ceases to exist when the cracks move farther away. Figure 8 : Variation of normalized stress intensity factors with crack offset distance H. The variation of normalized mode II SIF K II /K 0 shown in Fig.8 is just opposite to that of mode I. Fig. 8 shows that when normalised mode I SIF attains the minimum value, associated mode II attains the maximum value which is almost 19% of mode I SIF for single edge crack. This behaviour is seen at H= 0.5 mm. Thereafter mode II SIF decreases with increase T