Saint-Venant torsion of a circular bar with radial cracks incorporating arbitrarily varied surface elasticity

We analytically investigate the contribution of arbitrarily varied surface elasticity to the Saint-Venant torsion problem of a circular cylinder containing a radial crack. The varied surface elasticity is incorporated by using a modified version of the continuum-based surface/interface model of Gurtin and Murdoch. In our discussion, the surface shear modulus is assumed to be arbitrarily varied along the crack surfaces. Both internal and edge cracks are studied. By using Green's function method, the boundary value problem is reduced to the Cauchy singular integro-differential equation of first order, which can be numerically solved by using the Gauss–Chebyshev integration formula, the Chebyshev polynomials, and the collocation method. The torsion problem of a cylinder containing two symmetric collinear radial cracks of equal length with symmetrically varied surface elasticity is also solved by using a similar method. Our numerical results indicate that the variation of the surface elasticity exerts a significant influence on the strengths of the logarithmic stress singularity at the crack tips, the torsional rigidity, and the jump in warping function.