Stress intensity factor for a circumferential crack in a finite-length thin to thick-walled cylinder under an arbitrary biquadratic stress distribution on the crack surfaces

This paper presents the development of a practical method, by using prepared tabulated data, to calculate the mode I stress intensity factor (SIF) for an inner surface circumferential crack in a finite-length cylinder. The crack surfaces are subjected to an axisymmetric stress with an arbitrary biquadratic radial distribution. The method was derived by applying the authors' weight function for the crack. This work is based on the thin shell theory and the Petroski-Achenbach method. Our method is valid over a wide range of mean radius to wall thickness ratio, R-m/W greater than or equal to1, and for relatively short cracks with a/W less than or equal to 0.5. The difference between the SIF obtained by our method for the geometry and that from finite element analysis is within 5%. The method we developed describes the effect that cylinder length gives on the SIF. This effect needs to be considered for cylinders shorter than non-dimensional cylinder length betaH less than or equal to 5. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.