Photoelastic Determination of Stress Intensity Factor of an Interfacial Crack in a Bi-material

Abstract

The stress intensity factor of an interfacial crack in a bi-material can be represented by a complex vector whose phase changes as a function of r, the radial distance from a crack tip. Two photoelasticity approaches are proposed for the determination of both the magnitude and the phase angle of this complex vector. It is shown that within the K-dominated zone the complex stress intensity factor can be determined at any r and then converted to any other r. The case of an interfacial crack under remote tension is used as an example for the illustration of the proposed techniques.