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INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ALPHA
AIV - CRITICAL CRACK LENGTHS
AIV-1 PROLOGUE
This section presents a summary on the analytical study performed and the results obtained on
assessing the Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) function of Crack-Lenath (CL) for the respective ISSA
habitable modules, and selected high pressure tanks of the Russian FGB module. A combination of
numerical methods, like the Finite Element Method (FEM) and closed form solutions outlined in
Section Ill, were employed in the study.
For comparative purposes and to determine the spread of the pertinent results, several fracture
criterion were utilized for deriving the SIF. In general, more accurate results on the SIF are obtained
by employing numerical techniques a¢ the FEM by modeling the particular shell of ir
toreect with ail ite
‘geometric and construction details, in contrast of published closed form solutions which are applicable
only to unreinforced-skin cylindrical shell structures. We have used essentially two finite element
codes: 1) ALGOR 3D Linear Stress Solution, and 2) ELASTO 2D Elasto-Pastic Plane Stress Solver.
ALGOR is a well-know FEM package, being commercially available for quite some time. The ELASTO
2D FEM computer program was developed, for the stress analysis of plane structure in the elastic-
plastic regime, during the Space Station Freedom Program [20].
‘Once the stresses at the crack-tip and the crack opening displacements (CTOD, and CMOD) were
obtained for a particular crack length and shell geometry, the SIF was estimated using selected closed
form solutions listed in Secticn II-B and Section III-C. For this purpose, we have utilized the MathCad
software package that runs under Windows environment. MathCad is a powerful spreadsheets
computer program, and work with formulas, numbers, text, and graphs. Than, the SIF was compared
to the material fracture toughness (K) as outlined in Section III-D, function of the shell minimum
thickness and the type of aluminum alloy material that the shell Is constructed with, to assess the SIF
in question
Note that, all analyses were serformed under quasi-static (ime independent) loading conditions, That
{s, the principal driver for crack opening and crack extension is the hoop (circumferential) stress, due
to the internal pressure (14.9 psia) loading,
AD
MA.TR-101-95
‘SECTIONA
