Rapid calculation of stress intensity factors

The demand to design evermore efficient, economic and safer structures continues and is set to only increase throughout the twenty-first century and beyond. Thus, the challenges confronting the engineer, concerned with ensuring a state of structural integrity prevails similarly grow evermore demanding. The SIF is widely recognised as the fundamental parameter vital for the assessment of defects, or cracks prone to linear elastic fracture behaviour. Difficulties in computing or measuring SIF are widely accepted especially when the crack is situated in a complex geometry or subject to a non-simple stress state. In addition, with the emergence of structural integrity monitoring systems there is likely to be an increased demand for the rapid availability of accurate SIF solutions for on-line defect assessment. This paper describes the development of a novel weight function methodology, which will potentially permit the determination of SIF solutions for such crack systems.