Thermal load-induced notch stress intensity factors derived from averaged strain energy density

Under the hypothesis of steady-state heat transfer and plane-strain conditions, the intensity of the stress distributions ahead of sharp V-notch tips can be expressed in terms of thermal notch stress intensity factors (thermal NSIFs) which can be used for fatigue strength assessments of notched components. The calculation of thermal NSIFs requires both an uncoupled thermal-mechanical numerical analysis and a very refined mesh. For these reasons, the numerical simulation becomes considerably expensive and time-consuming above all if large 2D or 3D models have to be solved. Refined meshes are not necessary when the aim of the finite element analysis is to determine the mean value of the local strain energy density on a control volume surrounding the points of stress singularity. On the other hand, the NSIFs value can be directly determined by the strain energy density. In this work, the method for rapid calculations of NSIFs based on averaged strain energy density, recently published in literature, is extended to thermal problems