Interface crack interacting with a microvoid in the near-tip process zone

This paper deals with the elastic problem of an interface macrocrack interacting with a near-tip microvoid in the process zone. The `pseudo-traction-edge-dislocation method' (abbreviated PTEDM) proposed by Zhao and Chen (1996) is extended to treat the macrocrack-microvoid interaction problem in bimaterial solids. A system of singular integral equations with Hilbert kernel is reduced and solved numerically, which provides a fundamental understanding of the interaction effect. Numerical results are given for six kinds of bimaterial combinations (Hutchinson, Meer and Rice, 1987). The J-integral analysis is also applied to the interaction problem, and some useful conclusions are presented in detail.