Analysis of cracked pressure vessel nozzles by finite elements

The paper describes various algorithms, their computer implementations and relative merits to define in an effective way strain energy release rates along the tip front of arbitrary 3D cracks under arbitrary load including thermal strains. These techniques are basically equivalent to substructuring techniques and consequently they can be implemented to any FEM program able to deal with the data handling problems of the substructuring technique. Special finite elements with a built-in stress-singularity are not necessary although their use contributes to accuracy and the mesh can be coarser. Examples are given carried out with a substructure version of the BERSAFE system. These examples include a corner crack in a pressure vessel nozzle loaded by internal pressure and by thermal stresses. Although not of any fundamental importance, in practice the difficulties consist in generating an appropriate mesh to represent the crack front. For the example of the corner crack in a nozzle the problem has been solved by developing a special purpose mesh generation program (EURCRACK)