Interaction of surface cracks in a plate

When structural components present more than one crack, such multiple cracks should be considered simultaneously since the interaction phenomenon could produce higher stress-intensity factor (SIF) values with respect to the case of a single crack. In the present paper, two identical coplanar semi-elliptical surface flaws in a plate with finite width and thickness under various elementary stress distributions on the crack faces are analysed by applying the finite element method. Then results for such elementary stresses are used to examine the interaction effect on the SIF values for real load cases