Weight function for an edge-cracked rectangular plate

In-situ edge-cracked rectangular plates (width H, length L) comprised of first-year sea ice on McMurdo Sound were tested during recent field trips to Antarctica, and expressions applicable for a wide range of crack lengths are sought for the stress-intensity-factor (SIF), and crack-opening-displacement (COD), given that the edge-crack is subjected to arbitrary crack-face loading. A weight function able to provide the required accurate wide-ranging expressions for an edge-cracked rectangular plate (ECRP) subject to arbitrary crack-face loading is developed in this paper, given H / L = 0.25 , 0.5 , 1.0 , 1.5 , 2.0 , and 4.0. The accuracy of the ECRP weight function is assessed by making comparisons with the edge-cracked strip subjected to pure bending (using H / L = 4.0 ), using the essentially identical SIF and CMOD results independently obtained by Kaya and Erdogan (1987) and Bakker (1995). Comparisons are also made with the SIF values obtained by Fett (1999) for the ECRP subjected to pure bending (for H / L = 1.0 , 1.5 , and 2.0). The double-cantilever-beam (DCB) study in Foote and Buchwald (1985) is used to assess the accuracy of the ECRP SIF for the case of concentrated loads at the crack mouth, for H / L = 1 / 4 and H / L = 1 / 2 . For the same loading and H / L = 4 , the study by Kaya and Erdogan (1980) of an edge-cracked infinite strip is used to assess accuracy. For crack-face concentrated loading acting at X / L = y i , given H / L = 4 , the accuracy of the ECRP SIF weight function is assessed by examining associated data reported by Kaya and Erdogan (1978).