Interactions of kinked interfacial cracks

Abstract The interactions of kinked interfacial cracks between two dissimilar isotropic media subjected to remote tension are investigated in this paper. The analytical technique consists of the dislocation modeling of the kinks, and the formulation generalizes previous models for a single crack to a model for two strongly interacting cracks. For two sets of Dundurs parameters, it is shown that the dependence of the stress intensity factors and the energy release rate on the geometrical and material parameters can be very complex due to interaction and the asymmetry of the crack configuration. It is also shown that interaction can change the kinking behavior completely, and that discrepancies in the kink angle and the critical stress predictions of the maximum energy release rate and the maximum mode I stress intensity factor criteria are affected by interaction.