Three-Dimensional Fully Plastic Solutions for Plates and Cylinders With Through-Wall Cracks

Abstract

In the finite element method with the incremental procedure based on the flow theory of plasticity, which is now widely employed, a great amount of load increments and specially trained analysts are necessary to obtain sufficiently accurate results. Thus, the method is not suitable for the routine evaluation or parametric analysis of cracked structures in the plastic regime. With this consideration, an alternative evaluation method, called the engineering approach, has been developed, where the fully plastic solutions are utilized with the linear-elastic solutions to estimate the entire elastic-plastic behavior of cracked bodies. In this paper, a Selective Reduced Integration/Penalty Function (SRI/PF) method is developed for the analysis of three-dimensional fully plastic solutions. It is demonstrated through the calculation of center-cracked plates under plane strain condition that accurate solutions can be obtained with the present method. Then, using the method, fully plastic solutions for cylinders with a circumferential through-wall crack subjected to remote uniform tension are calculated and tabulated as functions of the crack angle and the hardening exponent.