Geometry independent C^(*)-T_(z) dominance of three-dimensional quasistatic growing crack-tip fields in creeping solids

In creeping solids,plane stress and plane strain solutions for asymptotic singular crack-tip fields have been first put forward by Riedel and Rice with C^(*)as the dominating parameter and developed by Xiang and Guo into three-dimensional solution(3D)for stationary cracks under the domination of C^(*)with the constraint factor Tz.However,how to characterize the 3D crack-tip fields under creep damage-induced quasistatic growing conditions remains challenging.In this study,we reveal that,for 3D quasistatic growing cracks,the leading singular solution can effectively characterize the crack-tip stress distributions with relative errors less than 10.8%for relative creep time up to 0.8 in various specimens with finite thickness.For a given relative time,Tz distributions can be unified by the equivalent thickness concept,Beq.The results show that C^(*)-T_(z) can effectively quantify both the load and constraint effects on the crack-tip fields.Such geometry independent dominance can considerably simplify the treatments of load and constraint effects,thereby promoting the application of fracture mechanics in high-temperature damage tolerance designs.