Crack opening Behavior of penetrated crack under fatigue load

The leak-before-break (LBB) behaviors of a structural component under high and low fatigue loads are an important problem in nuclear power plants, liquid nitrogen gas tankers and chemical plants. This paper is an experimental study to evaluate the crack opening behavior after penetration for plate and pipe specimens. Crack opening displacement after penetration under low fatigue load could be satisfactorily determined at the center of the plate thickness regardless of the specimen size. In the case of high fatigue load, it is shown that the crack opening displacement at the center of a penetrated crack can be derived using the gross stress, sigma(G), and the front surface crack length, a(s), together with the back surface crack length, a(b).