Research Projects

Accurate determination of notch stress intensity factors (NSIFs) of sharp V-notches is very important for a reliable assessment of singular stress field near the notch tip of many critical components of various engineering structures. This singular stress field in turn useful in estimating the critical load for crack initiation from the notches. Depending on the notch-opening angle, a sharp V-notch may have different order of singularity than that of a crack. Quarter Point Elements (QPEs) are extensively used in cracked configurations and are available in all commercial software. However, no such practically feasible singular elements are currently available to felicitate the variable order singularity occurring at the sharp V-notches. All the currently available techniques employ conventional elements at the notch tip to compute the NSIFs. No attempts have been made till date to study the effect of direct use of available QPEs in estimation of the NSIFs of sharp V-notches. Further, no comparison among the available techniques is also appeared till date. Therefore, in the present investigation an attempt is made to study the effect of placement of QPEs at the tip of a sharp V-notch by developing a technique for assessment of the NSIFs using QPEs and comparison of this technique with other existing techniques to study the efficacy of the various technique available.