One of the specimens to investigate the mode-I fracture toughness of rock and geo-materials is semi-circular bend (SCB) specimen. In general, initial cracks in rock test specimens are produced in two shapes: straight-edge cracks and chevron notches. The ISRM suggested SCB specimen has straight shaped notch. | Numerical investigation of stress intensity factor for semi-circular bend specimen with chevron notch Engineering Solid Mechanics 3 2015 235-244 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Engineering Solid Mechanics homepage esm Numerical investigation of stress intensity factor for semi-circular bend specimen with chevron notch Eqlima Mahdavia b Yuzo Obarab Majid Reza Ayatollahia a Fatigue and Fracture laboratory School of Mechanical Engineering Iran University of Science and Technology 16846-13114 Tehran Iran b Graduate School of Science and Technology Kumamoto University Kumamoto Japan ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history One of the specimens to investigate the mode-I fracture toughness of rock and geo-materials is Received 6 April 2015 semi-circular bend SCB specimen. In general initial cracks in rock test specimens are Accepted 12 July 2015 produced in two shapes straight-edge cracks and chevron notches. The ISRM suggested SCB Available online specimen has straight shaped notch. However use of V-shaped or chevron notch in the SCB 15 July 2015 Keywords specimen is preferred because of some technical difficulties associated with making a sharp Semi-circular bend specimen crack or creating pre-crack to conduct the experimental tests. In this paper the minimum Chevron notch dimensionless stress intensity factor of cracked chevron notched semi-circular bend Rock CCNSCB specimen is determined using finite element analysis with ABAQUS software. An Stress intensity factor analytical method . Bluhm s slice synthesis method is used to verify the results. It is shown Finite element analysis that a good agreement exists between the numerical data and theoretical results. 2015 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Rocks are complex materials which contain natural joints fractures or flaws. Since discontinuities usually have some effects on the mechanical properties of rock evaluation of cracks in rock mass is very important.
