LAUSR

Abstract The crack opening displacement-based weight function method (WFM) for isotropic material is extended to analyze crack in orthotropic material for the first time. Explicit weight function for an edge crack in an orthotropic strip is provided in this paper. After thorough verifications against results from finite element analyses (FEA) and existing literature data, the weight function is used to determine the stress intensity factors (SIF) and crack opening displacements (COD) for three-point bending, eccentrical point load and segment bridging stress. The results agree very well with those obtained from extensive FEAs and existing literature. The dependences of the SIF and crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) on the material orthotropy are quantitatively determined. By comparisons to the SIF and CMOD for the edge cracked strip in isotropic material, it is found that the material orthotropy should not be ignored for some cases. The present weight function is highly accurate, efficient and versatile for calculating SIFs and CODs for edge cracks in orthotropic materials.