BOUNDARY EFFECTS FOR A REINFORCED CRACKED SHEET USING THE BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD

A Boundary Element procedure for analysis of cracked reinforced finite sheets is developed. The kernel functions used in the Boundary Element procedure are chosen to satisfy the traction free conditions on the crack surface and to avoid explicit modelling of the crack. This allows the stress intensity factor of the crack to be determined accurately using known Green's functions. The method is shown to give stress intensity factors which are in agreement with known results from other methods. New results are obtained which show that the stress intensity factor of the crack in a stiffened sheet is strongly affected by nearby boundaries, although this affect may be considerably relieved by an appropriately positioned stiffener. © 1990.