A fully parametric weight function for inclined edge cracks with a kink

A fully parametric weight function (WF) is proposed for determining the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of an inclined edge crack carrying a terminal kink. The WF can evaluate with accuracy better than 0.4% the SIFs for cracks with initial inclination angle in the range [-60 degrees,60 degrees], kinking angle in the range [-90 degrees,90 degrees], and the ratio of kinked-to-initial-cracklength in the range [0,1/4]. For inclined straight edge cracks, the WF accuracy is better than that of WFs derived so far. The online version of the paper is provided with a MATLAB (R) script containing functions that return the WF components and the SIFs. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.