Interference effect of interaction cracks investigated by photoelastic and caustics methods

The crack, which occurs because of fatigue, should often consider not only the single crack but also plural cracks occurring. In this paper, the material strength when two or more cracks occurred because of fatigue etc. was examined by calculating stress intensity factor K value by using caustics method and the photoelasticity. In general, plural cracks are known K, value decreases compared with the single crack. Therefore, the influence on K value was experimentally examined from the point of the distance between the cracks, the angle, and the crack length and the mode change. As a result, K, value influences destruction in plural in exist only mode I and the mixed mode of mode I and mode H like this research cracks. When the crack length becomes long if the distance between the cracks narrows, the decrease of K, value grows. In addition, it has been understood that the decrease of K, value is influenced by a/w on the boundary of d/a = l (the distance between the cracks is equal to the crack length).