The effects of shear and near tip deformations on energy release rate and mode mixity of edge-cracked orthotropic layers

In this paper semi-analytical expressions are derived for the energy release rate and the stress intensity factors of edge-cracked homogeneous and orthotropic layers subject to arbitrary generalized end forces. The expressions are accurate for long and short cracks. Following the work of Li et al. [Li S, Wang J, Thouless MD. The effects of shear on delamination in layered materials. J Mech Phys Solids 2004;52(1):193-214] for isotropic bi-material layers, the derivation extends the method proposed by Suo [Suo ZG. Delamination specimens for orthotropic materials. J Appl Mech 1990;57(3):627-34] for axial forces and bending moments in order to include the contribution of the shear forces. The shear contribution to the fracture parameters depends on the shear deformations along the layer and the elastic near tip deformation of the material. Li et al. [Li S, Wang J, Thouless MD. The effects of shear on delamination in layered materials. J Mech Phys Solids 2004;52(l):193-214] derived semi-analytical expressions for the fracture parameters that depend on the crack tip stress resultants, the elastic constants and five numerically-determined constants globally describing the effect of shear. In this paper analogous constants are derived for orthotropic layers and defined by semi-analytical expressions that highlight their physical significance and allow separation of the different contributions. The derivation is based on the assumption that the near tip deformation can be described by means of relative rotations between the cross sections of the different sub-layers at the crack tip (root rotations). The root rotations depend linearly on the crack tip stress resultants through compliance coefficients that are derived numerically in the paper for a wide range of orthotropic materials. Applications to different mixed mode delamination and peeling problems, for which accurate two-dimensional finite element solutions can be found in the literature, highlight the accuracy of the proposed expressions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.