Design of passively loaded specimen for constant KI during crack growth
Abstract: Passive loading of a specimen is a relatively cheap method to use in fracture mechanical testing compared to an actively loaded specimen. For stress corrosion cracking testing it is easier to use a passively loaded specimen since the specimen easily can be placed in a specific corrosive environment. The passive method lacks information about the crack growth over time and the load can not be regulated during the test to ensure crack growth. This thesis work was mainly about finding a specimen with a region of constant KI to ensure crack growth without the need of controlling the load and to find a way to estimate the crack growth over time. The work is based on Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics and the Finite Element Method. The thesis work resulted in a specimen with constant KI in the region 23/50 ≤ a/W ≤ 33/50 of crack growth and an equation was found to describe the relation between the crack propagation and the strain measured on the specimens back face.
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