FRICTIONAL CONTACT ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE CRACKS BY INCREMENTAL DISPLACEMENT AND RESULTANT TRACTION BOUNDARY INTEGRAL-EQUATIONS

Based on the merits of the dual boundary element technique, a modified dual boundary element technique is extended to deal with the friction al contact of a finite plate with arbitrarily distributed multiple cra cks. Besides establishing the incremental displacement boundary integr al equation on the outer boundary, the resultant traction boundary int egral equation on one of the crack surfaces is also developed. Since t he resultant traction instead of incremental traction on the crack sur face is introduced, the computed resultant contact tractions under sli ding condition satisfy the Coulomb's friction law directly. Hence, as compared with the authors' previous work, only very few computation it erations are required by this method to accurately describe the contac t situations of crack surfaces. As a result, not only the linear crack s, but also other types of multiple cracks, for example, curved and ki nked cracks, can be tackled. The effects of friction and interaction a mong cracks on the computation of stress intensity factors are also di splayed. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.