A cylindrical shell with a stress-free end which contains an axial part-through or through crack

In this article the interaction problem of a through or a part-through crack with a stressfree boundary in a semi-infinite cylindrical shell is considered. It is assumed that the crack lies in a meridional plane which is a plane of symmetry with respect to the external loads as well as the geometry. The circular boundary of the semi-infinite cylinder is assumed to be stress-free. By using a transverse shear theory the problem is formulated in terms of a system of singular integral equations. The line spring model is used to treat the part-through crack problem. In the case of a through crack the interaction between the perturbed stress fields due to the crack and the free boundary is quite strong and there is a considerable increase in the stress intensity factors caused by the interaction. On the other hand in the problem of a surface crack the interaction appears to be much weaker and consequently the magnification in the stress intensity factors is much less significant.