Experimental study of stress concentration near the tips of V-shaped cracks of different depths filled with various materials

One of the ways to eliminate the stress concentration in the vicinity of tips of surface cracks (V-shaped notches) is to fill the crack cavity with material. The effectiveness of this variant depends on the crack opening angle, the properties of the original and filler materials, and the strength of adhesion between the filler and basic materials. The solutions to the problem of a crack with a filling material obtained in the framework of the theory of elasticity revealed a singular behavior of stresses in the vicinity of crack tips. The analysis of the solutions obtained demonstrate that at a certain combination of V-notch angles and material properties there are no singular solutions, which is the best option for eliminating stress concentration. In addition, it is shown that in case of singular solutions, the level of stress concentration depends on the nature of the stress singularity. It should be noted however that these results are of a qualitative nature. In this paper, based on theoretical results, we present the results of experimental study, which give a quantitative estimate of the level of stress concentration in the samples with a V-shaped notch filled with material at different values of the notch depth and notch angles and various mechanical characteristics of filling materials.