• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1047-1059
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• 2018

This paper focuses on the cracking and fragmentation process in rock materials containing a pair of non-parallel flaws, which are through the specimen thickness, under vertical compression. Several numerical experiments are conducted with varying flaw arrangements that affect the initiation and tensile wing cracks, shear crack growth, and crack coalescing behaviors. To obtain realistic numerical results, a parallelized peridynamics formulation coupled with a finite element method, which is able to capture arbitrarily occurring cracks, is employed. From previous studies, crack initiation and propagation of tensile wing cracks, horsetail cracks, and anti-wing cracks are well understood along with the coalescence between two parallel flaws. In this study, the coalescence behaviors, their fragmentation sequences, and the role of an x-shaped shear band in rock material containing two non-parallel flaws are discussed in detail on the basis of simulation results strongly correlated with previous experimental results. Firstly, crack initiation and propagation of tensile wing cracks and shear cracks between non-parallel flaws are investigated in time-history and then sequential coalescing behavior is analyzed. Secondly, under the effect of varying inclination angles of two non-parallel flaws and overlapping ratios between a pair of non-parallel flaws, the cracking patterns including crack coalescence, fragmentation, and x-shaped shear band are investigated. These numerical results, which are in good agreement with reported physical test results, are expected to provide insightful information of the fracture mechanism of rock with non-parallel flaws.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.8 s.239
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• pp.1070-1077
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• 2005

The $40\%$ of wall thickness criterion which has been used as a plugging rule is applicable only to a single cracked steam generator tubes. In the previous studies performed by authors, several failure prediction models were introduced to estimate the plastic collapse pressures of steam generator tubes containing collinear or parallel two adjacent axial through-wall cracks. The objective of this study is to examine the failure prediction models and propose optimum ones for non-aligned two axial through-wall cracks in steam generator tubes. In order to determine the optimum ones, a series of plastic collapse tests and finite element analyses were carried out for steam generator tubes with two machined non-aligned axial through-wall cracks. Thereby, either the plastic zone contact model or COD based model was selected as the optimum one according to axial distance between two clacks. Finally, the optimum failure prediction model was used to demonstrate the conservatism of flaw characterization rules for various multiple flaws according to ASME code.