• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.373-380
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• 2000

Finite element analysis is performed on the subsurface crack propagation in brittle materials due to sliding contact. The sliding contact is simulated by a rigid asperity moving across the surface of an elastic half-surface containing single and multiple cracks. The single crack, coplanar cracks and parallel cracks are modeled to investigate the interaction effects on the crack growth in contact fatigue. The crack location is fixed and the friction coefficients between asperity and half-space are varied to analyze the effect of surface friction on stress intensity factor for horizontal cracks. The crack propagation direction is predicted based on the maximum range of shear and tensile stress intensity factors. With a coplanar crack, the stress intensity factor was increased. However, with a parallel crack, the stress intensity factor was decreased. These results indicate that the interaction of a coplanar crack increases fatigue crack propagation, whereas that of a parallel crack decreases it.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.11 s.242
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• pp.1472-1479
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• 2005

Multiple surface crack distributed randomly along a weld toe influences strongly on the fatigue crack propagation life of welded joint. It is investigated by using statistical approaches based on series of systematic experiments. From the statistical results, initial crack numbers and its locations follow the normal distribution, and the probability of initial crack depths and lengths can be described well by tile Weibull distribution. These characteristics are used to calculate the fatigue crack propagation life, in which the mechanisms of mutual interaction and coalescence of the multiple cracks are considered as well as the Mk-factors obtained from a parametric study on the crack depths and lengths. The automatic calculation is achieved by the NESUSS, where the parameters such as the number, location and size of the cracks are all treated as random variables. The random variables are dealt through the Monte-Carlo simulation with sampling random numbers of 2,000. The simulation results show that the multiple cracks lead to much shorter crack propagation life compared with those in single crack situation. The sum of the simulation and tile fatigue crack initiation life derived by the notch strain approach agrees well with the experiments.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.65-73
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• 2004

Fatigue crack growth from surface defects is one of the most important subjects for the evaluation and the assurance of safety in pressure vessels, piping systems, LPG/LNG fuel tank and other various structures. This paper attempts to analysis some practical or general problems such as the estimation of crack growth life to penetrate the plate thickness, based on fatigue crack growth a single surface flaw and the interaction of multiple flaws. An experiment on the coalescence of multiple undercuts was carried out under cyclic tension condition as a attempt to the analysis of multiple crack problems. It is noted that the fracture strength is characterized by the analogy to that in a single crack growth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.680-689
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• 2010

The crack-tip stress fields and fracture mechanics assessment parameters for a surface crack, such as the elastic stress intensity factor or the elastic-plastic J-integral, can be affected significantly by the adjacent cracks. Such a crack interaction effect due to multiple cracks can alter the fracture mechanics assessment parameters significantly. There are many factors to be considered, for instance the relative distance between adjacent cracks, the crack shape, and the loading condition, to quantify the crack interaction effect on the fracture mechanics assessment parameters. Thus, the current assessment codes on crack interaction effects (crack combination rules), including ASME Sec. XI, BS7910, British Energy R6 and API 579-1/ASME FFS-1, provide different rules for combining multiple surface cracks into a single surface crack. The present paper investigates crack interaction effects by evaluating the elastic stress intensity factor and the elastic-plastic J-integral of adjacent in-plane surface cracks in a plate through detailed 3-dimensional elastic and elastic-plastic finite element analyses. The effects on the fracture mechanics assessment parameters of the geometric parameters, the relative distance between two cracks, and the crack shape are investigated systematically. As for the loading condition, an axial tension is considered. Based on the finite element results, the acceptability of the crack combination rules provided in the existing guidance was investigated, and the relevant recommendations on a crack interaction for in-plane surface cracks are discussed. The present results can be used to develop more concrete guidance on crack interaction effects for crack shape characterization to evaluate the integrity of defective components.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.73-81
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• 2004

Failure mechanisms of welded joints under fatigue loads are interpreted that multiple collinear surface cracks initiating randomly along the weld toes propagate under the mutual interaction and coalescence of adjacent two cracks. To estimate fatigue crack propagation life for three types of the representative welded joints, i.e. non-load carrying cruciform, cover plate and longitudinal stiffener joint, the stress intensity factors at the front of the surface cracks have to be calculated, which are influenced strongly by the geometry of attachments, weld toes and the crack shapes. For the effective calculation of the stress intensity factors the Mk-factor was introduced which can be derived by a parametric study performed by FEM considering influence of the geometrical effects. The fatigue life of the cruciform joint was estimated by using the Mk-factors and the method considering the propagation mechanisms of the multiple surface cracks. Analysis results for the fatigue life had a good agreement with that of experiment.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.7 s.94
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• pp.1668-1677
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• 1993

The objective of this paper is to develop a computational model for predicting the fatigue propagation of collinear multiple surface cracks under constant amplitude and variable amplitude loadings. After examining fatigue crack growth behavior for CT specimens and single surface crack specimens, empirical equations of(11) and(12) are proposed for the prediction of fatigue life in a multiple surface crack geometry. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified using a life prediction computer program. Several case studies were performed to check the accuracy of the proposed model and to verify the usefulness of the developed program. Good agreement is observed between the numerical results based on the proposed model and the published experimental data.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.133-141
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• 2002

This paper describes a versatile finite element technique which has been used to investigate wide range of structural defects of practical importance. The procedure automatically remeshes the three-dimensional finite element model during the stages of crack growth. Problems include the surface cracks in leak-before-break situations, the shape development of multiple surface defects.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.275-284
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• 1991

Fatigure crack growth from surface defects is one of the most important subjects for the evaluation and the assurance of safety in pressure vessels, piping systems, ship hulls and other various structures. This paper attempts to analysis some practical or general problems such as the estimation of crack growth life to penetrate the plate thickness, based on fatigure crack growth from a single surface flaw and the interaction of multiple flaws. An experiment on the coalescence of multiple undercuts was carried out under cyclic tension condition as a attempt to the analysis of multiple crack problems. It is noted that the fracture strength is characterized by the analogy to that in a single crack growth.

• KSTLE International Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.12-16
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• 2001

A finite element analysis of crack propagation in a half-space due to sliding contact was performed. The sliding contact was simulated by a rigid asperity moving across the surface of an elastic half-surface containing single and multiple cracks. Single, coplanar, and parallel cracks were modeled to investigate the interaction effects on the crack growth in contact fatigue. The analysis was based on linear elastic fracture mechanics and the stress intensity factor concept. The crack propagation direction was predicted based on the maximum range of the shear and tensile stress intensity factors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.579-587
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• 2019

This paper provides further validation of the burst pressure estimation equations for multiple axial surface cracked steam generator tubes, recently proposed by the authors based on analytical local collapse load approach against systematic FE damage analysis results of Alloy 690 tubes with twin axial surface cracks. Wide ranges of the relative crack depth and multiple crack configurations are considered. Comparison shows good agreements, giving sufficient confidence of the proposed equations.