Periodically spaced collinear cracks in a soft ferromagnetic material under a uniform magnetic field

This paper aims at a fundamental perspective of multiple cracks’ interaction on the fracture behavior of magnetoelastic materials. A theoretical study is performed on a soft ferromagnetic solid weakened by an array of periodic cracks under an in-plane magnetic loading. By using the conformal mapping technique and the analytic function boundary value theory, a rigorous analytical solution of the magnetic and stress fields is obtained, and the closed-form expressions for the field intensity factors are presented. Numerical examples of magnetically impermeable and permeable cracks are studied to reveal the relationship of the mode-I stress intensity factor with the period ratio of the cracks, the surrounding medium, and the applied magnetic loading. The analytical solution in this study can serve as a theoretical benchmark for the fracture problem of a magnetoelastic solid containing multiple defects.