Coupled transient thermoelastic response in an edge-cracked plate

In this paper, a general finite-element model is employed to deal with coupled transient thermoelastic problems of fracture in an edge-cracked plate, especially with longer transient periods. If the existence of the crack does not affect the temperature distribution, we can divide the problem into two parts and solve it by the method of superposition. In the first place, the transient thermal stresses induced in the imaginary body without crack are calculated by the Laplace transform/finite element method. Secondly, taking the opposite sense of the stress distributions, obtained previously along the crack surfaces, as the traction boundary conditions, the stress intensity factors (S.I.F.) of the real cracked body are then evaluated by F.E.M. The numerical results of the edge-cracked plate for the uncoupled case (δ = 0) are compared with the exact solution and a very close agreement can be found between them. Consequently, it demonstrates the accuracy, efficiency, and versatility of the proposed method which is capable of dealing with a cracked elastic body subjected to any time-dependent thermal and/or mechanical loadings. It is shown that the effect of the thermoelastic coupling term on S.I.F. becomes more significant when the value of the thermoelastic coupling term becomes larger. The effect of this coupling term also induces a small time lag in the S.I.F.