Analysis of asymmetric kinked cracks of arbitrary size, location and orientation-Part I. Remote compression

摘要

In this paper, the stress intensity factors ofinteracting kinked cracks in an elastic solid under remotecompression and the overall strains of the solid are determinednumerically. The kinked cracks are in general asymmetric,unequal, and arbitrarily oriented and located. Each kinked crackconsists of a closed frictional main crack, and traction free kinksmodeled by continuous dislocation distributions. The originalproblems is decomposed into straight crack problems such thatthe main cracks are subjected to dislocation and shear tractionloadings. The model is used to investigate the dependence of thestress intensity factors and the overall strains on the crackconfiguration, i.e., a single fault of cracks, parallel faults, crossedfaults, periodic and random crack arrays, and on the geometricaland physical parameters such as the fault angle and the lateral confinement.