Line Spring Model and Its Applications to Part-Through Crack Problems in Plates and Shells

Abstract

This paper, after giving a general description of the line spring model, covers the problem of the interaction of multiple internal and surface cracks in plates and shells. The shape functions for various related crack geometries obtained from the plane strain solution and the results of some multiple crack problems are presented. The problems considered include coplanar surface cracks on the same or opposite sides of a plate; nonsymmetrically located coplanar internal elliptic cracks; and, in a very limited way, the surface and corner cracks in a plate of finite width and a surface crack in a cylindrical shell with fixed end.