Fracture Response of cracked orthotropic plates

none2The solution of the elastostatic problem of an orthotropic body having a central inclined crack and subjected at infinity to a uniform biaxial load has been employed. It is assumed that the crack line does not coincide with an axis of elastic symmetry of the body. The stress filed is reported. The topic of the present paper is the extension of the maximum Circumferential Tensile Stress Criterion to orthotropic materials, in order to obtain the crack initiation angle, pointing out the effects of orthotropy and load biaxiality. The influence of the non singular terms on the crack initiation angle is also investigated.noneC. Carloni; L. NobileC. Carloni; L. Nobil