A criterion study for non-singular stress concentrations with size effect

Abstract

In engineering applications, dealing with the stress concentrations is an important issue. When a stress concentration presents a non-singular feature, the commonly used engineering strength criteria are usually not appropriate to predict the structure failure. In this paper, we first presented a simple experimentation, which consists of a central-holed plate under uniaxial tensile loading. Then we showed that most of commonly used criteria are not suitable for this case of non-singular stress concentration. By analysing the energy dissipation of micro-crack bands under different stress concentrations, we proposed a new fracture criterion based on the finite fracture mechanics. It was shown that this criterion could provide accurate critical remote loads comparing with experimental data. We believe that the three-parameter concept is physically reasonable and can be used in establishing fracture criteria in both the cases of singular and non-singular stress concentrations.