MULTIPLE CRACK INTERACTION AND ITS EFFECT ON STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR

This paper presents a versatile and numerically accurate and efficient method to study multiple crack problems. The solution technique is based on a singular integral method which uses distributions of edge dislocations to represent the cracks in the mathematical model. Plane strain multiple crack problems are considered to investigate the effect on the stress intensity factor due to the elastic interaction between multiple cracks. The results obtained show that interaction between microcracks could produce either an enhancement or a shielding effect on the stress intensity factor depending on the positions and orientations of the microcracks.