Theoretical assessment of cracking in orthotropic material under symmetrical heat flow/mechanical loading

This paper studies a cracked orthotropic solid under symmetric heat flow, and symmetric mechanical loading is studied. A modified partially impermeable crack model is employed to simulate thermal load transfer. With the application of the Fourier transform technique and superposition theory, the related physical quantities and fracture parameters are obtained in explicit forms. The advantage of this paper is that the obtained solutions are explicitly closed. As a result, the calculation of the stress intensity factors of various cracks with different lengths becomes very convenient and fast. Some simple examples are used to demonstrate the method provided in this paper. The analysis results show the dimensionless thermal resistance ((Formula presented.)) between the upper and lower crack regions and the proposed coefficient ((Formula presented.)) greatly influence the related physical quantities and fracture parameters. In addition, the numerical analysis results also revealed that the calculated results of fracture parameters at the crack tip will not be physically meaningful unless certain conditions are met.