The Interface Crack in a Shear Field

Abstract

The interface crack in a tension field was reconsidered in a recent paper, and the unrealistic oscillatory singularities were eliminated by assuming small frictionless contact zones near the crack tips. In the present paper, the interface crack in a shear field is studied. Some unexpected results emerge: one of the contact zones is large, affecting thus the global nature of the solution; the gap closes extremely abruptly at one of its ends, but the normal stresses remain zero at this point; and the shear stress-intensity factors have opposite signs at the crack tips.