Thermal Shock loading of a surface crack in a hollow sphere

Temperature and stress distributions in a hollow sphere are calculated, caused by a sudden cooling (thermal shock) of the inner surface of a hollow sphere. The thermal stresses are acting as load of surface cracks of approximate semi-elliptic shape. By means of the weight functions method stress intensity factors are estimated at the deepest point of the cracks using the well-known Newman-Raju solution for semi-elliptical surface cracks in a plate as reference solution.