Damage development in a sidegrooved CT specimen based on a 3-D endochronic damage model

Abstract

This paper presents a three-dimensional crack initiation analysis in a sidegrooved CT specimen. This is achieved with an endochronic damage model proposed recently by Chow and Chen [1, 2] and discretized for finite element analysis. The damage model enables the quantification of the progressive damage evolution which would not be otherwise possible using the conventional fracture mechanics analysis. By employing two separate damage failure criteria, the crack is predicted to initiate at a small distance from the sidegroove and the prediction agrees well with the experimental observation. A more uniform crack initiation across the crack-tip line is observed both experimentally and theoretically relative to the CT specimen without sidegrooving.