Photoelastic study of a double edge notched plate for determination of the Williams series expansion

In this work, digital photoelasticity method is applied for assessment of the crack tip linear fracture mechanics parameters for a plate with double edge notches and different other crack configurations. The overarching objective of the study is to obtain the coefficients of the Williams series expansion for the stress and displacement fields in the vicinity of the crack tip by the digital photoelasticity technique for the double edge notched plate. The digital image processing tool for experimental data obtained from the photoelasticity experiments is developed and utilized. The digital image processing tool is based on the Ramesh approach but allows us to scan the image in any direction and to analyse the image after any number of logical operations. In the digital image processing isochromatic fringe analysis, the optical data contained in the transmission photoelastic isochromatics were converted into text file and then the points of isochromatic fringes with minimum light intensity were used for evaluating fracture mechanics parameters. The multi-parameter stress field approximation is used. The mixed mode fracture parameters, especially stress intensity factors (SIF) are estimated for specimen configurations like double edge notches and inclined center crack using the proposed algorithm based on the classical over-deterministic method. The effects of higher-order terms in the Williams expansion were analysed for different cracked specimens. It is shown that the higher order terms are needed for accurate characterization of the stress field in the vicinity of the crack tip. The experimental SIF values estimated using the proposed method are compared with analytical / finite element analysis (FEA) results, and are found to be in good agreement.