Mixed mode crack in a periodically-layered composite

The problem on a crack in a bimaterial periodically-layered composite is considered. The single finite length crack parallel to the interfaces is loaded by normal opening tractions but the fracture mode is the mixed one as a result of non–symmetric crack location within the layer. The crack is presented as distributed dislocations with unknown density and the problem is reduced to a system of singular integral equations of the first kind. The coefficients of the system are derived from the application of the Green function for a single dislocation which is obtained in a closed form with the help of the representative cell approach. The dependence of the stress intensity factors K_I and K_II upon the geometric and elastic mismatch parameters is examined. The numerical study allowed to point out the cases in which the simplified sandwich model can be employed for the analysis. On the other hand, for the case of very thin and stiff non–cracked layers essentially dissimilar behavior of the stress intensity factors was revealed. In particular, we discovered that K_II may vanish not only for the symmetric crack position in the midplane of the layer but also in several additional ones. For some limiting cases the solution is seen to coincide with known results.     

The mode I crack problem for layered piezoelectric plates

The plane strain singular stress problem for piezoelectric composite plates having a central crack is considered. For the case of the crack which is normal to and ends at the interface between the piezoelectric plate and the elastic layer, the order of stress singularity around the tip of the crack is obtained. The Fourier transform technique is used to formulate the problem in terms of a singular integral equation. The singular integral equation is solved by using the Gaus–Jacobi integration formula. Numerical calculations are carried out, and the main results presented are the variation of the stress intensity factor as functions of the geometric parameters, the piezoelectric material properties and the electrical boundary conditions of the layered composites.     

Dynamic stresses created by the sudden appearance of a transverse crack in periodically layered composites

The time-dependent stress field generated by the sudden appearance of a transverse crack in a periodically layered composite that is subjected to a remote loading is determined. The resulting two-dimensional elastodynamic problem is solved by combining two approaches. In the first one, the representative cell method, which has been presently generalized to dynamic problems, is employed for the construction of the time-dependent Green’s functions generated by the displacement jumps along the crack line. This is performed in conjunction with the application of the double finite discrete Fourier transform. Thus the original problem for the cracked periodic composite is reduced to the problem of a domain with a single period in the transform space. The second approach is based on a wave propagation in composites theory which has been presently generalized to admit arbitrary types of loading. This theory is based on the elastodynamic continuum equations where the transformed time-dependent displacement vector is expressed by a second-order expansion, and the equations of motion and the various interfacial and boundary conditions are imposed in the average (integral) sense. The time-dependent field in any observation point in the plane can be obtained by the application of the inverse transform. This field is valid as long as no reflected waves from external boundaries have been arrived. Results along the crack line as well as the full field are given for cracks of various lengths for Mode I, II and III deformations. In particular the dynamic magnification with respect to the static case is determined at the interface within the first unbroken stiff layer.     

The interaction of mode I crack with multi-inclusions in a three-phase model

An approximately close form solution has been developed for mode I crack interacting with multi-inclusions in composite materials. The crack-tip stress intensity factor is evaluated in a three-phase model, which combines the present knowledge that the inclusions only in the immediate neighborhood of the crack-tip have strong effect on the stress intensity factor and that the far inclusions have an overall effects which can be estimated by effective properties of the composites. As validated by numerical examples, the solution has good accuracy for a wide range of the modulus ratios between the inclusion and matrix material.     

Stress singularities in a periodically layered composite near interface crack tips

The paper deals with the asymptotic analysis of stresses near interface crack tips in the periodically two-layered elastic composites. The problem is investigated for the plane state of strain within the framework of the homogenized model with microlocal parameters. The angular dependence of stresses at the crack tip is presented for different mechanical and geometrical properties of the composite.     

Interface crack in periodically layered bimaterial composite

A directional crack growth prediction in a compressed homogenous elastic isotropic material under plane strain conditions is considered. The conditions at the parent crack tip are evaluated for a straight stationary crack. Remote load is a combined biaxial compressive normal stress and pure shear. Crack surfaces are assumed to be frictionless and to remain closed during the kink formation wherefore the mode I stress intensity factor K _I is vanishing. Hence the mode II stress intensity factor K _II remains as the single stress intensity variable for the kinked crack. An expression for the local mode II stress intensity factor k ₂ at the tip of a straight kink has been calculated numerically with an integral equation using the solution scheme proposed by Lo (1978) and refined by He and Hutchinson (1989). The confidence of the solution is strengthened by verifications with a boundary element method and by particular analytical solutions. The expression has been found as a function of the mode II stress intensity factor K _II of the parent crack, the direction and length of the kink, and the difference between the remote compressive normal stresses perpendicular to, and parallel with, the plane of the parent crack. Based on the expression, initial crack growth directions have been suggested. At a sufficiently high non-isotropic compressive normal stress, so that the crack remains closed, the crack is predicted to extend along a curved path that maximizes the mode II stress intensity factor k ₂. Only at an isotropic remote compressive normal stress the crack will continue straight ahead without change of the direction. Further, an analysis of the shape of the crack path has revealed that the propagation path is, according the model, required to be described by a function y=cx , where the exponent is equal to 3/2. In that case, when =3/2, predicts the analytical model a propagation path that is self-similar (i.e. the curvature c is independent of any length of a crack extension), and which can be described by a function of only the mode II stress intensity factor K _II at the parent crack tip and the difference between the remote compressive normal stress perpendicular to, and parallel with, the parent crack plane. Comparisons with curved shear cracks in brittle materials reported in literature provide limited support for the model discussed.     

Prediction of crack growth direction for mode I/II loading using small-scale yielding and void initiation/growth concepts

Under the assumption that the processes which control the direction of crack growth in 2024-T3 aluminum are directly related to void initiation and growth, a theoretical framework is developed to predict the direction of crack growth. The basic premise of the framework is that, depending on the mode mixity of the remotely applied loading, either σ _m /σ_eff or σ_eff triggers the nucleation and growth of voids hence, fracture. The theoretical development uses linear elastic assumptions and two terms in the asymptotic expansion to describe the stress field in the vicinity of the crack tip for a mixed-mode I/II ARCAN specimen. Predictions based on the theory indicate that: (a) the transition from Mode~I type to Mode~II type crack propagation can be accurately quantified, and (b) the direction of crack growth is reasonably well predicted for both types of crack propagation. In addition, a qualitative, but microstructurally based, physical rationale for the observed phenomena is presented. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An energetically consistent annular crack in a piezoelectric medium

The analytical treatment of an energetically consistent annular crack in a piezoelectric solid subjected to remote opening electromechanical loading is addressed. Potential functions and Hankel transform in combination with a robust technique are employed to reduce the solution of the mixed boundary value problem into a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. The limiting case of a penny-shaped crack in a piezoelectric medium with energetically consistent boundary conditions over the crack faces is extracted for the first time. The electrical discharge phenomenon within the crack gap is modeled utilizing a non-linear constitutive law and the effects of the breakdown field on the energy release rate are delineated. The energy release rate, the electric displacement inside the crack gap, and the closing traction on crack faces are plotted for all possible geometries of a non-discharging annular crack.     

Estimation of the effects of plasticity and resulting crack closure during small fatigue crack growth

On the basis of a plastic-strip model and the method of singular integral equations, a closed-form analytical solution of the problem of an elastic-plastic plate containing a rectilinear fatigue crack is considered. The solution is used for the prediction of fatigue growth of `mechanically-small' crack by accounting for reverse plastic yielding and plasticity-induced crack closure in the material. The main effects of these factors on the crack-growth rate are analyzed, and the predicted results are compared with experimental data on small fatigue-crack growth in a aluminum-lithium alloy 2091-T351 and Fe-3% Si alloy.     

Variations of stress intensity factor of a semi-elliptical surface crack subjected to mixed mode loading

Maximum stress intensity factors of a surface crack usually appear at the deepest point of the crack, or a certain point along crack front near the free surface depending on the aspect ratio of the crack. However, generally it has been difficult to obtain smooth distributions of stress intensity factors along the crack front accurately due to the effect of corner point singularity. It is known that the stress singularity at a corner point where the front of 3 D cracks intersect free surface is depend on Poisson's ratio and different from the one of ordinary crack. In this paper, a singular integral equation method is applied to calculate the stress intensity factor along crack front of a 3-D semi-elliptical surface crack in a semi-infinite body under mixed mode loading. The body force method is used to formulate the problem as a system of singular integral equations with singularities of the form r ⁻³ using the stress field induced by a force doublet in a semi-infinite body as fundamental solution. In the numerical calculation, unknown body force densities are approximated by using fundamental density functions and polynomials. The results show that the present method yields smooth variations of mixed modes stress intensity factors along the crack front accurately. Distributions of stress intensity factors are indicated in tables and figures with varying the elliptical shape and Poisson's ratio.     

The temperature field induced by the dynamic stresses of a transverse crack in periodically layered composites

The temperature field induced by the dynamic application of a far-field mechanical loading on a periodically layered material with an embedded transverse crack is investigated. To this end, the thermoelastically coupled elastodynamic and energy (heat) equations are solved by combining two approaches. In the first one, the dynamic representative cell method is employed for the construction of the time-dependent Green’s functions generated by the displacement jumps along the crack line. This is performed in conjunction with the application of the double finite discrete Fourier transform on the thermomechanically coupled equations. Thus the original problem for the cracked periodic composite is reduced to the problem of a domain with a single period in the transform space. The second approach is based on wave propagation analysis in composites where full thermomechanical coupling in the constituents exists. This analysis is based on the coupled elastodynamic-energy continuum equations where the transformed time-dependent displacement vector and temperature are expressed by second-order expansions, and the elastodynamic and energy equations and the various interfacial and boundary conditions are imposed in the average (integral) sense. The time-dependent thermomechanically coupled field at any observation point in the plane can be obtained by the application of the inverse transform. Results along the crack line as well as the full temperature field are given for cracks of various lengths for Mode I and Mode II deformations. In particular the temperature drops (cooling) at the vicinity of the crack’s tip and the heating zones at its surroundings are generated and discussed.     

含不完美界面的磁电复合材料倾斜裂纹问题

研究了含非完美界面的双层压电/压磁复合材料中压电相存在一个倾斜于界面的Ⅲ型裂纹问题。采用弹簧型耦合界面模型模拟非完美界面,运用Fourier积分变换法将裂纹面条件转化为奇异积分方程,并使用Lobatto-Chebyshev方法数值求解了裂纹尖端应力强度因子（SIF）。详细地研究了裂纹尖端SIF与界面参数、压电/压磁材料参数和材料的层厚、裂纹的倾斜角、裂纹与界面的距离等几何参数的关系。结果表明：力学不完美性可以独立地增大SIF,而磁学、电学不完美性只有与力学不完美性耦合时才会减小SIF;力学-电学、力学-磁学不完美性的耦合会减小SIF,而磁学-电学不完美性的耦合不会影响SIF;磁场作用下,增大压磁层弹性模量会减小SIF,而增大压电层压电系数,减小压电层弹性模量和介电常数,均会减小SIF;界面不完美性会影响SIF随裂纹倾斜角度或裂纹与界面之间距离的变化规律;在一定范围内增加压电层或压磁层厚度可以减小SIF。     

Stress intensity solutions for the interaction between a hole edge crack and a line crack

The principle of superposition is used to solve the problem and the original problem is converted into two particular hole edge crack problems. The remote stresses are applied at infinity in the first problem. Meantime, a dislocation distribution is assumed outside the hole contour in the second problem. Singular integral equation is proposed for the solution of the second problem, in which the right hand side of the integral equation is obtained from the solution of the first problem. The first problem as well as the elementary solution of the second problem are solved by means of the rational mapping approach. Finally, numerical examples with the calculated results of stress intensity factors are presented.     

Variation of mixed modes stress intensity factors of an inclined semi-elliptical surface crack

In this paper, a singular integral equation method is applied to calculate the stress intensity factor along crack front of a 3D inclined semi-elliptical surface crack in a semi-infinite body under tension. The stress field induced by displacement discontinuities in a semi-infinite body is used as the fundamental solution. Then, the problem is formulated as a system of integral equations with singularities of the form r ^–3. In the numerical calculation, the unknown body force doublets are approximated by the product of fundamental density functions and polynomials. The results show that the present method yields smooth variations of mixed modes stress intensity factors along the crack front accurately for various geometrical conditions. The effects of inclination angle, elliptical shape, and Poisson's ratio are considered in the analysis. Crack mouth opening displacements are shown in figures to predict the crack depth and inclination angle. When the inclination angle is 60 degree, the mode I stress intensity factor F _I has negative value in the limited region near free surface. Therefore, the actual crack surface seems to contact each other near the surface.     

Dynamic stress intensity factor (Mode I) of a penny-shaped crack in an infinite poroelastic solid

This paper considers the transient stress intensity factor (Mode I) of a penny-shaped crack in an infinite poroelastic solid. The crack surfaces are impermeable. By virtue of the integral transform methods, the poroelastodynamic mixed boundary value problems is formulated as a set of dual integral equations, which, in turn, are reduced to a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind in the Laplace transform domain. Time domain solutions are obtained by inverting Laplace domain solutions using a numerical scheme. A parametric study is presented to illustrate the influence of poroelastic material parameters on the transient stress intensity. The results obtained reveal that the dynamic stress intensity factor of poroelastic medium is smaller than that of elastic medium and the poroelastic medium with a small value of the potential of diffusivity shows higher value of the dynamic stress intensity factor.     

The surface crack problem for a layered plate with a functionally graded nonhomogeneous interface

The plane elasticity solution is presented in this paper for the crack problem of a layered plate. A functionally graded interfacial region is assumed to exist as a distinct nonhomogeneous transitional layer with the exponentially varying elastic property between the dissimilar homogeneous surface layer and the substrate. The surface layer contains a crack perpendicular to the boundaries. The Fourier transform technique is used to formulate the problem in terms of a singular integral equation. The main results presented are the variations of stress intensity factors as functions of geometric and material parameters of the layered plate.     

Dynamic SIF of interface crack between two dissimilar viscoelastic bodies under impact loading*

In this paper, the transient dynamic stress intensity factor (SIF) is determined for an interface crack between two dissimilar half-infinite isotropic viscoelastic bodies under impact loading. An anti-plane step loading is assumed to act suddenly on the surface of interface crack of finite length. The stress field incurred near the crack tip is analyzed. The integral transformation method and singular integral equation approach are used to get the solution. By virtue of the integral transformation method, the viscoelastic mixed boundary problem is reduced to a set of dual integral equations of crack open displacement function in the transformation domain. The dual integral equations can be further transformed into the first kind of Cauchy-type singular integral equation (SIE) by introduction of crack dislocation density function. A piecewise continuous function approach is adopted to get the numerical solution of SIE. Finally, numerical inverse integral transformation is performed and the dynamic SIF in transformation domain is recovered to that in time domain. The dynamic SIF during a small time-interval is evaluated, and the effects of the viscoelastic material parameters on dynamic SIF are analyzed.     

Interface crack and nonideal interface concept (Mode III)

Asymptotic behaviour of displacements and stresses in a vicinity of the interface crack tip situated on a nonideal interface between two different elastic materials is investigated. The nonideal interface is described by special transmission conditions along the material bonding. The corresponding modelling boundary value problem is reduced to a singular integral equation with fixed point singularities. It is shown from the solution to the problem that asymptotic behaviour of displacement and stresses near the crack tip essentially depends on the model parameters. Some numerical examples are presented and discussed with respect to the stress singularity exponent and the generalized stress intensity factors.     

Kinked crack in a bending trapezoidal plate

The interaction problem of a kinked crack and the edges of a bending trapezoidal plate which takes the effects of transverse shear deformation into account is presented. The research method is based upon the complex potential technique of Muskhelishvili using conformal mapping. Furthermore, for the analysis of the moment intensities at the tips of the kinked crack, the concept of dislocation distribution is applied. The integral equations for the stress disturbance problem along the line that is the presumed location of the kinked crack are then obtained as a system of singular integral equations with simple Cauchy kernels. As a consequence, the variation of moment intensity factors at the crack-tips is also illustrated.     

A crack in a confocal elliptic piezoelectric inhomogeneity embedded in an infinite piezoelectric medium

An effective method is developed and used to investigate the elastic field and the electric field of a crack in a confocal elliptic piezoelectric inhomogeneity embedded in an infinite piezoelectric medium. The matrix is subjected to the remote antiplane shear and inplane electric field. The analytical solution is obtained using the conformal mapping and the theorem of analytic continuation. Specific solutions which are compared with existing ones are provided. The characteristics of the elastic field and electric field singularities at the crack tip are analyzed and the corresponding crack extension forces are derived.