Crack propagation in an elastic solid subjected to general loading— IV. Obliquely incident stress pulse

Abstract T he stress intensity factors of a half-plane crack extending nonuniformly in an isotropic elastic solid subjected to stress wave loading are considered. A plane stress pulse is obliquely incident on the crack, and the wavefront strikes the crack at some initial time. At some arbitrary later time, the crack begins to extend at a nonuniform rate. It is found that the mode I and mode II stress intensity factors each have the form of the product of a universal function of instantaneous cracktip speed with the stress intensity factor for an equivalent stationary crack. An energy-rate balance fracture criterion is applied to obtain an equation of motion for the crack tip and to determine the actual delay time between the arrival of the incident wave and the onset of fracture as a function of angle of incidence of the loading wave.