Transient elastodynamics around cracks including contact and friction

In this paper, some numerical investigations of fast transient elastodynami c problems are presented, which consider especially the interaction of elas tic waves with cracks, including contact and friction. For this purpose, a boundary element formulation in the time domain is coupled with contact mec hanics models previously proposed and tested by the authors in the framewor k of elastostatic contact problems. In the numerical examples, qualitative and quantitative effects of the interaction between elastic waves and non-c lassical, unilateral cracks are briefly discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Scienc e S.A. All rights reserved.