Stress intensity factors and T-stress for an edge cracked Brazilian disk specimen under diametrically distributed load

Analytical formulae of stress intensity factors (SIFs) and T-stress in an edge cracked Brazilian disc (ECBD) subjected to diametrically uniformly and parabolic distributed pressure were firstly derived with the weight function method (WFM). Meanwhile, these analytical expressions of SIFs and T-stress were verified to be very accurate through the comparative analysis with the existing results, which could be expediently used to calculate the SIFs and T-stress in ECBD specimens with normalized crack length less than 0.50. Furthermore, load distribution form and load distribution angle affecting SIFs and T-stress was also investigated, which indicated that their influences were closely related to the crack length and crack inclination angle. The values of YI and T* decreased with increasing load distribution angle, however, YII was increased for theta = 30 degrees, a/D < 0.25. It was also found that load distribution form and distribution angle had almost no effect on SIFs for a/D > 0.35, but their effects on T-stress should be considered for large crack inclination angles. Moreover, the influence of uniformly distributed pressure on SIFs and T-stress was more significant than that of parabolic distributed pressure for a larger load distribution angle.