3-DIMENSIONAL STRESS SINGULARITY AT A BIMATERIAL INTERFACE CRACK FRONT

An eigenfunction expansion method is developed to obtain three-dimensi onal asymptotic stress fields in the vicinity of the front of a semi-i nfinite crack along a bimaterial interface of a plate subjected to far field extension and bending. In comparison with the existing method, t he present method is considerably easier to implement, and is also com putationally more efficient in the sense that it does not need to reso rt to iterative schemes to solve the system of three coupled partial d ifferential equations of three-dimensional elasticity theory. Explicit expressions for singular stress fields in the neighborhood of the fro nt of a semi-infinite crack along a bimaterial interface are derived i n the paper. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re served.