Stress Intensity Factors for Fully Interacting Cracks in a Multicrack Solid

An essential part of describing the damage state and predicting the damage growth in a multicracked plate is the accurate calculation of stress intensity factors (SIF). Here, a methodology and rigorous solution formulation for SIF of a multicracked plate, with fully interacting cracks, subjected to a far-field arbitrary stress state is presented. The fundamental perturbation problem is derived, and the steps needed to formulate the system of singular integral equations whose solution gives rise to the evaluation of the SIF are identified. This analytical derivation and numerical solution are obtained by using intelligent application of symbolic computations and automatic FORTRAN generation capabilities in form of symbolic/FORTRAN package, named SYMFRAC, that is capable of providing accurate SIF at each crack tip. The accuracy of the results has been validated for the two parallel interacting crack problem. Limits and sensitivity of the results for the problem of a horizontal notch interacting with ten microcracks have been analyzed.