Plane cracks with frictionally constrained surfaces

This paper examines the class of problems dealing with the mechanics of planar cracks that are subjected to incremental loading and where the surfaces of the crack exhibit a non-linear constraint over a finite region. Since the effects of the non-linearity are restricted to pre-defined surfaces, the boundary element technique can be applied quite successfully to determine the influence of such non-linearity on the development of stress intensity factors at the crack tip. In particular, attention is focussed on the evaluation of the stress intensity factors for plane crack with a non-linear surface constraint, which is subjected in turn to an isotropic compressive stress field followed by an incremental uniaxial loading in either tension or compression.