USE OF THE DISTRIBUTED DISLOCATIONS METHOD TO DETERMINE THE T-STRESS

This paper demonstrates a method to determine the elastic T-stress for a semi-infinite half-plane containing a surface-breaking crack which is loaded by an arbitrarily distributed far-field tension. The method consists of representing the crack by a continuous distribution of edg e dislocations and forming singular integral equations to determine th e equilibrium dislocation distributions. By numerically solving the in tegral equations, stress intensity factors and T-stresses are obtained for the example case of a crack which is normal and inclined to the f ree-surface of a half-plane and loaded by a uniform far-field tension.