The stress intensity factors for pressed cracks in arbitrary shapes

A boundary element method (BEM) was specially developed for a crack under crack face pressure in arbitrary two-dimensional problems. It is based on the basic stress solutions for an infinite plane with a crack loaded by body forces and moment at arbitrary point, which were derived by Erdogan from the Kolosov-Muskhelishvili fundamental functions, and the basic solution for a crack in an infinite plate under crack surface pressure, so that the crack surface need not be modelled. Therefore, minimal modelling efforts are needed to obtain stress intensity factors with the method and its accuracy was established by comparing the obtained results with the exact SIF results and acceptable results for various problems of arbitrary shapes and loadings.