Intersonic Crack Propagation—Part I: The Fundamental Solution

Abstract

Recent experiments of Rosakis et al. have clearly shown that the crack-tip velocity can exceed the shear wave speed for a crack tip propagating between two weakly bonded, identical and isotropic solids under shear-dominated loading. This has motivated recent theoretical and numerical studies on intersonic crack propagation. We have obtained analytically the fundamental solution for mode-II intersonic crack propagation in this paper. This fundamental solution can provide the general solutions for intersonic crack propagation under arbitrarily initial equilibrium fields. We have also developed a cohesive zone model to determine the crack-tip energy release for an intersonic shear crack.