Analysis of sharp angular notches in anisotropic materials

The singular stresses at the tip of a sharp angular notch are analysed for the most general case of elastic anisotropy. The problem is stated in relation with the kinked crack and is modelled by means of continuous distributions of dislocations which are assumed to be singular at the notch vertex, the kind of the main singularity λ being unknown and weaker than at the crack tip. The Mellin transform is applied to obtain a system of simultaneous functional equations that enables one to find the parameter λ. The reciprocal theorem is used to compute the generalised stress intensity factor which characterises the singular stresses in a neighbourhood of the notch tip.