Determination of Stress Intensity Factor for Unequal Cracks Emanating from a Quasi-square Hole under Shear

In the different applications of thin plats in engineering industrial, some holes are created in the structure that can have different shapes such as circular, elliptical, and quasi-square. When the plate is subjected to loading, stress concentration around the hole causes the crack initiation in these areas that can results in a catastrophic failure. In this paper, mode II stress intensity factor (SIF) for two unequal aligned cracks emanating from a circle or a quasi-square hole in an infinite plane was investigated. The complex variable theory of Muskhelishvili and conformal mapping method were used. To obtain mapping function, Schwarts Christoffel integral was combined with some simple mapping functions. Accordingly, a new mapping function is presented and approximated to the sum of series expansion. Using this approximate mapping, SIF is calculated with high accuracy. Surfaces of the cracks and hole are traction-free. The plane is subjected to the pure shear at infinity. The analytical results are in good agreement with the literature. The obtained stress intensity factors have good accuracy for small cracks. The equation presented in this paper is applicable to the length of the different cracks and calculates the intensity coefficients of mode II for very small cracks with high accuracy. Results show that the shape of the hole is important only for the small cracks