Evolution of a crack with kink and non-penetration

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution problem for a crack with a kink in elastic body is considered. This nonlinear formulation accounts the condition of mutual non-penetration between the crack faces. The kinking crack is presented with the help of two unknown shape parameters of the kink angle and of the crack length, which minimize an energy due to the Griffith hypothesis. Based on the obtained results of the shape sensitivity analysis, solvability of the evolutionary minimization problem is proved, and the necessary conditions for the optimal crack are derived. © 2008 The Mathematical Society of Japan.