Shielding effect and emission condition of a screw dislocation near a blunt crack in elliptical inhomogeneity

The shielding effect and emission condition of a screw dislocation near a blunt crack in elastic elliptical inhomogeneity is dealt with. Utilizing the Muskhelishvili complex variable method, the explicit series form solutions of the complex potentials in the matrix and the inclusion regions are derived. The stress intensity factor and critical stress intensity factor for dislocation emission are also calculated. The influences of the orientation of the dislocation and morphology of the blunt crack as well as the material elastic dissimilarity upon the shielding effect and emission criterion are discussed in detail. As a result, numerical analysis and discussion show that the positive screw dislocation can reduce the stress intensity factor of the crack tip (shielding effect) only when it is located in the certain region. The shielding effect increases with the increase of the shear modulus of the matrix and the curvature radius of the blunt crack tip, but decreases with the increase of dislocation azimuth angle. The critical loads at infinity for dislocation emission increases with the increment of the emission angle and the curvature radius of the blunt crack tip, and the most probable angle for screw dislocation emission is zero. The present solutions contain previous results as the special cases.