KI evaluation by the displacement extrapolation technique

This paper shows the influence of element size, element shape, and mesh arrangement on numerical values of K-1 obtained by the displacement method, and gives some guidelines to obtain K-1 values as good as the most accurate energy based estimations, typically within a few percent difference of the exact value. Three different displacement-based extrapolation techniques are analyzed. The influence of stress state is also shown. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.