A Surface Crack in a Graded Medium Under General Loading Conditions

Abstract

In this study the problem of a surface crack in a semi-infinite elastic graded medium under general loading conditions is considered. It is assumed that first by solving the problem in the absence of a crack it is reduced to a local perturbation problem with arbitrary self-equilibrating crack surface tractions. The local problem is then solved by approximating the normal and shear tractions on the crack surfaces by polynomials and the normalized modes I and II stress intensity factors are given. As an example the results for a graded half-plane loaded by a sliding rigid circular stamp are presented.