The Effect of Crack Length Unevenness on Stress Intensity Factors Due to Autofrettage in Thick-Walled Cylinders

Abstract

The effect of crack length unevenness on the mode I stress intensity factors (SIFs) for large uniform arrays of radial cracks of unequal depth in fully or partially autofrettaged thick-walled cylinders is investigated. The analysis is based on the previously proposed “two-crack-length level model.” Values for KIA—the SIF due to the compressive residual stress field—for various crack arrays bearing n1 = n2 = 2−512 cracks, a wide range of nondimensional crack lengths l1/a=0.01−0.1, and numerous levels of autofrettage ε = 30−100 percent are evaluated by the finite element method for a cylinder of radii ratio of b/a = 2. The interaction range for different combinations of crack arrays and crack length is then determined. The obtained results show that the unevenness in the SIFs depends on all three parameters, i.e., the number of cracks in the array, the cracks’ lengths, and the level of autofrettage, while the interaction range between adjacent cracks is determined only by the relative length of the cracks and the density of the array.