THE OPENING OF A PAIR OF COPLANAR GRIFFITH CRACKS UNDER INTERNAL PRESSURE

Abstract

This paper discusses the distribution of stress in the neighbourhood of a pair of coplanar Griffith cracks when these cracks are subjected to internal pressure. This is a ‘three-part’ boundary value problem and its solution is given by determining the coefficients in a pair of dual trigonometrical series. In the Bpecial case of uniform internal pressure, closed formulae are given for the resulting shape of the cracks and for the stresses in their neighbourhood. These formulae involve the well-tabulated elliptic integrals and some numerical results are given.