Anti-plane shear behavior of an arbitrarily oriented crack in bonded materials with a nonhomogeneous interfacial zone

The anti-plane shear problem of bonded elastic materials containing a crack at an arbitrary angle to the graded interfacial zone is investigated in this paper. The interfacial zone is modeled as a nonhomogeneous interlayer of finite thickness with the continuously varying shear modulus between the two dissimilar, homogeneous half-planes. Formulation of the crack problem is based upon the use of the Fourier integral transform method and the coordinate transformations of basic field variables. The resulting Cauchy-type singular integral equation is solved numerically to provide the values of mode III stress intensity factors. A comprehensive parametric study is then presented of the influence of crack obliquity on the stress intensity factors for different crack size and locations and for different material combinations, in conjunction with the material nonhomogeneity within the graded interfacial zone.