Evolution and interaction of surface cracks under thermal shock load

This paper investigates the evolution and interaction of thermal shock cracks through experiment and FEM simulation. Thermal shock test is conducted to study the thermal cracks evolution behaviour and the FEM simulation is proposed to study the temperature, thermal stress, and SIF distribution between thermal cracks. Results show that the thermal cracks nucleate on the specimen surface and finally form in stable thermal crack network. Large temperature and thermal stress gradient would occur in the cooling process. Parallel and coplanar cracks both reflects quite weak interactions in crack shielding and enhancing effect respectively. All the simulation results could prove the evolution behaviour of thermal cracks obtained in the thermal shock test.