C. Burville - Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC ۳۰۱۰, Australia.
M.M. Kheirikhah - Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC ۳۰۱۰, Australia.
S. Omidi - Faculty of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University Qazvin, Iran.
S. Gohari - Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC ۳۰۱۰, Australia.

Conical shells play a significant role in different branches of engineering such as aerospace and oil industries. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the fracture behavior of metallic conical shells containing an internal semi-elliptical crack. An accurate three-dimensional finite element method is employed to model the conical shell using ANSYS standard code. Special singular elements are used to consider the square-root singularity at the semi-elliptical crack front. Stress intensity factors of the cracks which placed in different positions of the shell is calculated. To confirm the accuracy of the present finite element model, both stress distribution of the structure and stress intensity factor of the crack in special case are compared with published results. The effect of different geometrical parameters on the stress intensity factor of the cracks are investigated. Results show that the crack aspect ratio has a significant effect on the stress intensity factor of the cracks.

Fracture Analysis, Stress intensity factor, Conical shell, Finite Element Method, Semi-Elliptical Crack