Study of a static cruciform crack problem in an orthotropic elastic plane

This paper deals with the plane strain problem of determining stress intensity factors and crack energies of a static cruciform crack in an infinite orthotropic elastic medium. The problem is reduced to the solution of two simultaneous singular integral equations with Cauchy-type singularities. Expressions for stress intensity factors (SIF) and crack energies for the case general loading distribution are obtained. Numerical results for some special cases are presented for the Boron-Epoxy composite material.