Determining Stress Intensity Factor for Cracked Brazilian Disc Using Extended Finite Element Method

Cracked Brazilian Disc specimen is widely used to determine mode I/II and mixed mode fracture toughness of rock. In this study, stress intensity factor on crack tip in this specimen is calculated for various geometrical conditions of cracks using extended-finite element method. In this method, the crack is modeled independent of the mesh. The results show that the dimensionless stress intensity factors for pure Mode I and II increase with increasing crack length. The closed form solutions are introduced to determine the NI and NII for different geometry of crack.