Effective Thickness of Side-Grooved Clamped SE(T) Specimens for J-R Curve Testing

Three-dimensional (3D) finite element analyses (FEA) of clamped single-edge tension (SE(T)) specimens were performed to investigate the effective thickness used in the calculations of the stress intensity factor (K) and plastic eta factor-based J-integral (J). The SE(T) specimens with six relative crack lengths (a/W ratios from 0.2 to 0.7), one relative thickness (B/W = 1), and eleven depths of side groove (i.e., BN/B = 1, 0.94, 0.92, 0.9, 0.88, 0.86, 0.85, 0.84, 0.82, 0.8, and 0.75) were considered in the analyses. Based on the FEA results, new effective thickness expressions and values for K and J estimations for side-grooved SE(T) specimens were proposed and validated.