Crack Arrest Modes of a Transverse Crack Going Through a Longitudinal Crack or a Hole

Abstract

The process of a transverse crack intersecting a longitudinal central crack, a longitudinal eccentric crack, or a central hole was investigated by means of high-speed photography and caustics. The results show that the crack momentarily arrests when arriving at the discontinuity, then reinitiates later, usually with a different velocity. Although the geometrical characteristics of the discontinuities had an effect, all crack arrest processes show fundamental similarities, since they are all related to the destruction and reconstruction of the singular stress field of the moving crack at the discontinuity. These results are in accordance with previous work of the authors for crack arrest at the interface of biphase plates.