A fracture parameter for welded structures with residual stresses

Abstract

In this paper, a finite element procedure to determine a fracture parameter J ld is presented for welded structures with consideration of residual stresses. The method is based on the energy difference of two cracked solids with slightly different crack sizes. Our computational results show that J ld and the J integral agree well for a cracked plate without consideration of residual stresses. When the residual stresses are considered, the values of J ld for different contours close to the crack tip in the cracked plate subject to remote tensile stresses are in good agreement. The computational results also indicate that for the given residual stress distribution, the values of J ld with consideration of residual stresses are lower than those without consideration of residual stresses for the cracked plate subject to large remote tensile stresses.