Issue 33

E. Maggiolini et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 33 (2015) 183-190; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.33.23 183 Focussed on characterization of crack tip fields Effective stress assessment at rectangular rounded lateral notches Enrico Maggiolini, Roberto Tovo, Paolo Livieri University of Ferrara Enrico.maggiolini@unife.it, Roberto.tovo@unife.it, Paolo.livieri@unife.it A BSTRACT Rectangular lateral notches are not common engineering components, thus little research attention has been directed towards the investigation of their stress field properties. Indeed, no in-depth investigations have been conducted to date to assess their effective stress distributions according to the effective stress definitions provided by more recent non-local approaches (i.e. critical distance, average values, implicit gradient values, etc.). In fact, the potential applications of this kind of investigation are not even particularly relevant. However, rectangular notches could provide an interesting theoretical and experimental benchmark or reference case in order to validate the effective stress definitions. The aim of this paper is to investigate the linear elastic stress field at edges, corners and in the surrounding material of rectangular, sharp or rounded lateral notches. The consequent effective values of these notches are evaluated in relation to brittle fracture or their predicted fatigue strength values. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the relationship between geometrical proportions and the location of critical failure points according to the definitions of effective stress proposed in the literature. K EYWORDS . Fillet radius; Shoulder fillet; Notches; Equivalent stress; Local field; Implicit gradient. I NTRODUCTION n practice, shoulder fillets (a shaft is a typical example) and U-notches (for example in relation to keyways) are commonly used and much researcher is being performed worldwide to understand the mechanisms underlying the geometry irregularity and the material behaviour in their near fields. Shoulder fillets are more frequently used than U- notches for reducing the weight and the volume of material; especially in high performance structures, where designers tend to introduce sudden reductions in section and thickness. A well-known problem associated with the use of notches regards their stress concentration factors. In the worst case scenario, notches can even result in a stress singularity with all its associated problems . Neuber [1] and Peterson [2] are highly renowned in the field of ... because, more than 50 years ago, they provided the first solutions (in relation to just a few simple cases) for U-notches of different shapes. Since then, a great deal of research has been directed towards these kinds of notches, characterising them according to the depth and radius of the notch [3, 4], because because for how they are made it is mostly impossible to have a sharp edge instead of a notch radius. Over the years, the precision of mechanical tools has increased dramatically, resulting in very small notch radii that often result in geometry singularities (considering the very high stress concentration factors that can increase the local stress to a negligible value for the application of a local study). For this reason, energy based criteria (strain energy densities [5]) and average stress field approaches (implicit gradient [6]) are becoming more important. U-notches of various shapes and under different load directions have been studied over recent years [7, 8], nevertheless the Brazilian disk has become one I