Solution Methods for General Stress Concentrators in Anisotropic Heterogeneous Media

Abstract

The increasing use of fibre-reinforced composites in high performance structures has brought a renewed interest in the analysis of cracks, wedges, and multi-material wedges in anisotropic materials. This paper will address three crucial stages of the general stress concentrator analysis: i) numerical procedures for the determination of eigenvalues and eigenvectors in Williams-like asymptotic expansion for multi-material wedge; ii) approaches to an accurate calculation of the near crack tip fields – the application of so-called two-state (or mutual) conservation integrals; iii) application of fracture criteria for the assessment of fracture inception at the general stress concentrators - concept of the so called finite fracture mechanics.