Crack Opening Area Solutions for Through-Wall Cracks in the Vicinity of Welded Attachments

This paper presents the latest results of a finite element study undertaken to evaluate crack opening areas (COA) and stress intensity factors (K_I) for through-wall cracks located in the region where an attachment is welded to a plate geometry. Both membrane and bend loads have been considered. In addition, COAs and stress intensity factors have been evaluated for the same crack sizes located in a simple plate geometry. These values have been determined by applying both membrane and bend stresses to the plain plate, the magnitudes of which correspond to those for the stress profile in the un-cracked complex geometry in the vicinity of where the cracks would be introduced. This has enabled information to be established on the conservatism or otherwise of using simple plate solutions to evaluate COAs and stress intensity factors for cracks in the complex geometry.