Interface crack tip field in a kind of rubber materials

The interface crack tip field between two dissimilar rubber materials those obey the Knowles-Sternberg (J. Elast. 3 (1973) 67-107) elastic law is anal ysed. The whole field composed of two shrinking sectors and one expanding s ector. Under tensile and shear mixed load the interface is always located i n the expanding sector provided the hardening exponents of the materials ar e equal. The completely analytical solutions are obtained for both shrinkin g and expanding sectors. It is found that the important expanding sector wa s ignored by Herrmann's (J. Elast. 21 (1989) 227-269) solution so that the location of interface cannot be determined. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.