Stress distributions in cracked thin cylindrical shells: Series expansion

This work deals with the approximate solutions to thin cylindrical shells with cracks under a single and mixed mode crack extension. Series expansions for the stress and displacement functions are employed. The convergence of the series near the crack tip region is investigated. The results are compared with those found from a finite element analysis which involved laborious calculations as the crack tip is approached. Improvement in the numerical solution can be more easily obtained by taking higher order terms in the series expansion. Strain energy density distributions have also been evaluated by the caustics method and compared to those obtained by finite element and series expansion.