On problems of fracture of materials in compression along two internal parallel cracks (Q1369491)

The problem of the material fracture under the action of compressive forces, directed along cracks which are parallel in plane, is described by using a linearized relation derived from exact nonlinear equations of deformable solid body mechanics. As a criterion of the fracture initiation, the authors use the criterion of local instability near defects of the crack type. In these cases the process of stability loss initiates the fracture. Results, obtained by numerical analysis, lead to following conclusions. For sufficiently small distance between cracks, the critical loads are significantly (by one order) lower than critical loads obtained for infinite plane with one crack. Consequently, taking into account the mutual influence of cracks leads to significant reduction of the theoretical strength limit. For great distances between cracks, the values of critical loads coincide with values obtained for one crack in the plane. These loads are equal to loads of surface instability of a half-plane without cracks. For compressible bodies, the compressibility characterized by Poisson's coefficient \(\nu\) has a considerable influence on critical parameters (for highly-elastic materials with harmonic potential the authors compare more than 35 computations of critical loads with an exact value obtained in this paper by using a linearized theory for initiation of fracture). For composite materials, the concentration of components and relations between their elastic characteristics have an essential influence on the calculation of fracture loads.