Stability of a system of interacting cracks

Abstract

In the absence of crack branching, a system of straight cracks may interact and their growth regime may become unstable in the sense that some cracks may grow faster at a certain critical state, or even snap into a longer length, while other cracks may stop growing, or even snap closed.When the crack extension involves Modes I, II, and III, and the fracture criterion is defined by a critical value for the total energy release rate, necessary and sufficient conditions are developed for both the stability of a given regime, and for unstable crack growth. © 1978.