SINGULAR INTEGRAL EQUATION METHOD FOR MULTIPLE CURVED EDGE CRACKS EMANATING FROM BOUNDARY OF HALF-PLANE

This paper provides, an elastic solution for multiple curved edge cracks emanating from the boundary of the half-plane. After placing the distributed dislocations at the prospective sites of cracks in an infinite plate, the principal part of the complex potentials is obtained. By using the concept of the modified complex potentials, the complementary part of the complex potentials can be derived. The whole complex potentials satisfy the traction free condition along the boundary of half-plane automatically. This is a particular advantage of the suggested method. This concept or method of the modified complex potentials is a counterpart of the Green's function method, which is universal in mathematical physics. The direct usage of this method cannot provide a solution in detail. Comparing with the line edge crack case, the following points are significant in the presented study. The relevant kernels in the integral equation are more complicated than in the line edge crack case and the relevant integrations in the problem should be completed on curves. This paper solves a rather complicated problem, the multiple curved edge crack problem, and gives the final solution. A singular integral equation is formulated with the dislocation distribution being unknown function and the traction being the right hand term. The singular integral equation is solved by using the curve length method in conjunction with the semiopening quadrature rule. Periodic curved edge crack problem is also addressed. Finally, several numerical examples are given to illustrate the efficiency of the method presented.