Boundary element method analysis of cracked anisotropic bodies

Abstract

This paper presents a two-dimensional (2D) parametric study of the behaviour of uniformly cooled homogeneous linear elastic anisotropic bodies containing cracks using the boundary element method (BEM). The present work investigates the effects of varying material properties, and varying the orientation of these material properties, on the magnitude of the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of the cracked bodies. Five cracked plate geometries are considered in this study, namely: (i) a plate with an edge crack; (ii) a plate with a central crack; (iii) a plate with a double-edge crack; (iv) a plate with an edge crack emanating from a circular notch; and (v) a plate with symmetric cracks emanating from a central hole. The results of this study show that, for all crack geometries, the mode I SIF.