An analysis of stress intensity factor of four equally spaced edge cracks in a functionally graded material cylinder

ANSYS Parametric Design Language is used to evaluate stress intensity factor for four equally spaced edge cracks emanating from inner surface of a thick-walled functionally graded material (FGM) cylinder. Both, mechanical and thermal loads are considered. As mechanical load, pressure on both inner cylinder surface and crack surface is applied. As thermal load, difference between sintering and room temperature is considered. Displacement extrapolation method in APDL is used to evaluate stress intensity factor. The reliability of the method is addressed by validating results for homogeneous cylinder and double diametrically opposed cracks emanating from inner surface of a thick-walled FGM cylinder from previous studies. This study also shows that, FGM cylinder containing four edge cracks is less critical to crack propagation than cylinder containing single or double cracks. A TiC/Al2O3 FGM cylinder with different material distributions, cylinder-wall thickness and temperature difference is studied for the evaluation of the variation of stress intensity factor.