Based on the analytical solution of Crouch to the problem of a constant discontinuity in displacement over a finite line segment in an infinite elastic solid, in the present paper, the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements, which can be classified as the left and the right crack-tip elements, are presented to model the singularity of stress near a crack tip. Furthermore, the crack-tip elements together with the constant displacement discontinuity elements presented by Crouch and Starfied are used to develop a numerical approach for calculating the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of general plane cracks. In the boundary element implementation, the left or the right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. The method is called the hybrid displacement discontinuity method (HDDM). Numerical examples are given and compared with the available solutions. It can be found that the numerical approach is simple, yet very accurate for calculating the SIFs of branched cracks. As a new example, cracks emanating from a rhombus hole in an infinite plate under biaxial loads are taken into consideration. The numerical results indicate the efficiency of the present numerical approach and can reveal the effect of the biaxial load on the SIFs. In addition, the hybrid displacement discontinuity method together with the maximum circumferential stress criterion (Erdogan and Sih) becomes a very effective numerical approach for simulating the fatigue crack propagation process in plane elastic bodies under mixed-mode conditions. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not required because of an intrinsic feature of the HDDM. Crack propagation is simulated by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. At the same time, the element characters of some related elements are adjusted according to the manner in which the boundary element method is implemented.
