Stress intensity factors and weight functions for a corner crack in a finite thickness plate

Weight functions for the two surface points of a quarter-elliptical corner crack in a finite thickness plate of infinite width are derived from a general weight function and two reference stress intensity factors. The weight functions have been validated for several linear and non-linear crack face stress fields against finite element data. The weight functions appear to be particularly suitable for fatigue and fracture analysis of quarter-elliptical cracks in complex stress fields.