Effect of Mechanical Mismatch on the Stress Intensity Factors of Inclined Cracks under Mode I Tension Loading

This paper presents numerical analysis of stress intensity factors (SIFs) of inclined cracks due to mechanical mismatches. According to literature survey, tremendous amounts of SIFs can be found elsewhere. However, the SIFs for inclined cracks are difficult to obtain especially when mechanical mismatch at the crack interface are considered. ANSYS finite element program is used to model the cracks embedded in plain strain plates. The cracks are oriented at the interface between two different materials and subjected to mode I tension loading. It is showed that when mechanical mismatches are introduced the mode I SIFs reduced and on the other hand mode II SIFs increased. When the cracks are inclined, the mode I SIFs diverged but it is not for mode II SIFs and gradually increased when compared with the normal cracks.