A CRACK AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN 2 POWER-LAW MATERIALS UNDER PLANE-STRAIN LOADING

The stress fields at the tip of a crack lying along the interface between two incompressible power-law materials is considered for the case of plane strain loading. An asymptotic solution is constructed which has the property that the energy density W is of the order of 1/r, as r --> 0, in the material with the largest hardening parameter (material 1), where r denotes the radial distance from the crack tip. The solution in the other material (material 2) is such that W = o(1/r) as r --> 0. The solution in material 1 behaves, asymptotically, as if the other material is rigid. It is shown numerically that the near-tip fields are functions containing only one arbitrary constant, and this is corroborated analytically by using a small perturbation technique.