Stress distribution in the vicinity of slender notches having arbitrary shapes

Abstract

It was observed, by a photoelastic investigation of the stress distribution around slender notches having arbitrary configurations, that the symmetricantisymmetric and asymmetric nature of the configuration rather than the overall geometry controls the stress distribution around the notch tip. Since the peak stresses are found to be on the conservative side for symmetric configurations, it is suggested that the available theoretical expressions for the stress-intensity factor of an equivalent circular-arc crack be utilized for further work on crack-propagation studies.