PROPAGATING INTERFACE CRACKS WITH FRICTIONLESS CONTACT

RESULTS ARE presented for a study of the asymptotic stress and deformation fields around a crack that has frictionless crack surface contact, and is growing steadily along the interface of two dissimilar, homogeneous, isotropic and linearly elastic solids. A complete representation of Comninou-type (COMNINOU, J. appl. Mech. 44, 631, 1977) elastic crack tip fields is obtained using the method of analytic continuation. As in the case of stationary interfacial cracks, the crack tip stress singularity is found to be nonoscillatory and to resemble the classical mode Il type singularity. The findings of this investigation form a basis for further theoretical and experimental studies on the subject, in cases where the notion of small-scale contact is invalid. Transient effects on the asymptotic crack tip fields, due to nonuniform crack velocity or time-dependent stress intensity factor, can be readily included, if desired, with a method developed recently by the current author (DENG, Int. J. Solids Struct. 30, 513, 1993).