applied fracture mechanics

344Applied Fracture MechanicshP' (ax) P' (y)dy P (y)P (y)dy0 0 0xxh (25)NDFigure 4. Procedures involved in calculating failure probability for one-dimensional crack problems(Harris DO et al., 1983).The probability of failure at short time following the pre-service inspection is simply theprobability of having a crack of depth greater than the critical value, ac . Hence, for t ~ 0, thePoint A in Fig. 4 gives the cumulative failure probability (given that a crack is initiallypresent).During succeeding time, the cracks that are initially present can grow due to subcriticalcrack growth, such as fatigue or stress corrosion cracking. Fracture mechanics calculations