Thermal stress-focusing effect in a cylinder with phase transformation

Abstract

When a cylinder is suddenly subjected to an impact cooling, thermal stress waves occur at the surface of the cylinder the moment the thermal impact is applied. The stress waves in a cylinder with a focusing point proceed radially inward to the center of the cylinder. The wave may accumulate at the focusing point and give rise to very large stress magnitudes, even though the initial stresses may be relatively small. This phenomenon is called the stress-focusing effect. When the cooling process passes through the phase transformation point of metal, a phase transformation may occur. The eigenstrains of phase transformation also cause the stress-focusing effects at the center of a cylinder. In this paper, we analyze the stress-focusing effects induced by the thermal and phase transformational stresses caused by the thermal shock in a cylinder theoretically. The results give a clear indication of the mechanism of stress-focusing effects and clarify the orders of singularities of the stress-focusing effects in a cylinder.