Stress intensity factors for long, deep surface flaws in plates under extensional fields

Using a singular solution for a part circular crack by Smith, a Taylor Series Correction Method (TSCM) was verified for extracting stress intensity factors (SIFs) from photoelastic data. Photoelastic experiments were then conducted on plates with part circular and flat bottomed cracks for flaw depth to thickness ratios of 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 and for equivalent flaw depth to equivalent ellipse length values ranging from 0.066 to 0.319. Experimental results agreed well with the Smith theory but indicated that the use of the 'equivalent' semi-elliptical flaw for correlating the part circular flaw results with semi-elliptical flaw results was not valid for a/2c much less than 0.20. Best overall agreement for the moderate (a/t about 0.5) to deep flaws (a/t about 0.75) and a/2c greater than 0.15 was found with a semi-empirical theory due to Newman when compared on the basis of equivalent flaw depth and area. The Smith theory, when correlated on the basis of flaw depth and area, appears to yield reasonable estimates (within 10%) of the SIF for flat bottomed flaws for the geometries studied here.