Description:
<jats:p>The paper presents the results of a continued study of curved fatigue crack growth in a
multiple arbitrarily pre-cracked isotropic sheet under plane stress loading. The predictor-corrector
method (PCM) was extended in order to analyse the growth of multiple crack systems in a finite 2D
structure. Together with the recently proposed improved modified virtual crack closure integral
(MVCCI) method we can obtain accurate SIF values also for interacting cracks, and furthermore we
can simulate fatigue crack growth of multiple crack systems in plane sheets under proportional
mixed mode loading conditions. As a result, the program PCCS-2D is written to run within ANSYS
to simulate interacting curved cracks. In order to check the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed
method several example problems are solved. Especially curved cracks emanating from loaded fastener
holes in sheets are analysed.</jats:p>