EXPLICIT SOLUTIONS FOR CURVILINEAR CRACKS IN THE THERMOELASTIC MEDIUM

Boundary value problems for circular arcs of discontinuities or curved cracks embedded in an infinite medium due to a uniform heat flow are formulated and solved in closed form. By application of the complex va riable theory dealing with sectionally holomorphic functions, the pres ent problem is reduced to the solution of the problem of linear relati onship or Hilbert problem. An exact solution to the case of a semicirc ular insulated crack is obtained It is found that the thermal stresses or temperature gradient near the tips of a curved crack possess the s ame character of singularity as those obtained for a straight crack. T he simultaneous existence of mode-I and mode-II stress intensity facto rs are found in this paper which are dependent on the angle of heat fl ow, heat conductivity, and thermal and elastic isotropy. The validity of the fully open crack assumption is also discussed.