Elastic-plastic finite element analyses for reducers with constant-depth internal circumferential surface cracks

In this study, a 3-D automatic elastic-plastic finite element mesh generator is established to accurately predict the J-integral value of an arbitrary reducer with a constant-depth internal circumferential surface crack under bending and axial force. The contact pairs are used on the crack surfaces to simulate the actual contact behaviors of the crack model under loadings. In order to verify the accuracy of the proposed elastic-plastic finite element model for a reducer with a surface crack, the cracked straight pipe models are generated according to a special modeling procedure for a flawed reducer. The J-integral values along the crack front of surface crack are calculated and compared with the straight pipe models which have been verified in the previous published studies. Based on the comparison of computed results, good agreements are obtained to show the accuracy of present numerical models. More confidence on using the 3-D elastic-plastic finite element analysis for reducers with internal circumferential surface cracks can be thus established in this work.