FRACTURE-MECHANICS OF ORTHOTROPIC LAMINATED PLATES .3. THE SURFACE CRACK PROBLEM

In this paper the line spring model originally developed to treat the surface crack problems in homogeneous plates is extended to laminates which may consist of bonded isotropic or orthotropic dissimilar elasti c layers. By using the two fundamental solutions for a laminate with a through crack and the corresponding plane strain problem for an edge crack, the surface crack problem in laminates is reduced to a system o f singular integral equations. Sample results showing the stress inten sity factors are given for bonded orthotropic and isotropic layers whi ch correspond to fiber-reinforced structural composites and ceramic-co ated metal substrates, respectively.