Stress intensity factors and equations for tangential surface cracks in rotating hollow disks

In this study, normalized mode-I stress intensity factors (SIFs) along fronts of three-dimensional tangential surface cracks contained in rotating hollow disks are presented. A wide range of surface cracks with different values of crack aspect ratio, crack depth and radial coordinate along with different geometric parameter settings of the disk are included in the study, yielding a large class of solutions that may be faced with in practical engineering applications. Equations are also developed to allow computations of SIFs for any values of the parameters defining the problem within their practical limits. The results show that for a given crack shape and normalized depth, normalized SIFs decrease with increasing radial coordinate of the crack and with increasing ratio of the inner and outer disk radii. It is also observed that normalized SIFs increase slightly with increasing normalized thickness of the disk for a given crack shape, location and depth. A stress-based procedure is also introduced and validated that can be used to determine the normalized SIFs for a crack located at a radial coordinate based on the normalized SIFs of another crack located at a different radial position.