Asymptotic stress field in a cracked orthotropic strip

Abstract

Christensen's theory of viscoelastic fracture allows the crack propagation velocity to be determined in terms of dissipation whose calculation requires the knowledge of the stress field in the vicinity of the crack tip: the simplest configuration leading to a constant velocity is that of a straight semi-infinite crack contained in an infinitely long strip whose clamped edges are displaced normal to the crack; although experimental data pertaining to this problem have been obtained for a number of materials, no analytical solution is available. When the material is highly anisotropic, an asymptotic solution involving a small parameter related to the ratio of shear modulus to the larger Young's modulus can be attempted. As the corresponding perturbation problem is singular, a matched asymptotic expansion has to be used: it is the sum of outer and inner approximations; both of these are solutions to simple boundary-value problems which can be solved in closed form. The so-constructed asymptotic solution is shown to agree with finite element results, even when the small parameter is as large as 0.2.