Stress Intensity Factors of partly circumferential surface cracks at the outer wall of a pipe

By means of the finite element method stress intensity factors were calculated for partly circumferential surface cracks at the outer wall of a pipe. The crack shape considered can be described as curved rectangular shape. The cracks considered have crack depths between 20 and 80 percent of the wall thickness of the pipe and crack lengths (defined by the angle of circumference φ) between φ = 10° and φ = 60°. The pipe is loaded by a constant axial tensile stress σ₀ (equal to 136 Nmm^?2 in the numerial calculations), and the wall thickness to inner radius ratio of the pipe was chosen to 0.1. A wall thickness of 20 mm was used for the numerical calculations.