UNIVERSAL FEATURES OF ELASTIC NOTCH-TIP STRESS-FIELDS

The results of linear elastic analyses of stress distributions near a wide variety of notches are presented. Notches under tension, tension and bending, and pure bending have been considered. It is demonstrated that notch-tip stress fields are similar to each other regardless of the notch geometry and the loading system. Universal functions describing the stress field in the notch-tip neighborhood have been derived and tested against available analytical, numerical and experimental data. The universal expressions can be used to calculate stresses in the region x less than equivalent to 3 rho from the notch tip. These expressions can be particularly useful when using the weight function method to calculate stress intensity factors for cracks emanating from notches.