Interfacial fracture in elastic diffusive media (Q1201540)

The problem of interfacial fracture between a linear diffusive elastic medium and a rigid substrate has been tackled analytically using the Wiener-Hopf technique. The complex time-dependent stress intensity factors are evaluated in Laplace transform space and inverted both analytically for small times and numerically for all times. This complex stress intensity factor characterizes the near crack tip stress fields. The numerical results are obtained for an impulsively loaded semi- infinite crack in the permeable and impermeable interface cases. The stress intensity factors for a small time show that the diffusion can play an important role. The energy release rates for the two different interfaces are compared with those in the equivalent homogeneous cases. The contact zone analysis assumes that the ratio of the contact zone length to the loading length is much smaller than unity. The case of a steadily propagating, permeable or impermeable, semi-infinite interfacial fracture is also considered.