Basic results for elastic fracture mechanics with frictionless contact between the crack lips

Some previous works have been devoted to problems of elastic fracture mechanics with frictionless unilateral contact between the crack lips, and especially to the asymptotic expression of the displacement and stress fields near the tip of a closed, ordinary or interface crack. However, not all energetic aspects of a general theory of such problems have been explored. Such features are developed here. The topics investigated include a thermodynamic analysis of a growing closed crack, leading in a natural way to some Griffith-like criterion, stiffness and compliance formulae for the energy release rate, with an appealing example, and another nice example of application of Riceʹs integral and Irwinʹs formula. It appears that in spite of the inherent non-linearity of the problems envisaged, most classical results of LEFM can be transposed to them, with some relatively minor adaptations. This is essentially due to the hypothesis of absence of friction.