Shear Stress Intensity Factors for a Planar Crack With Slightly Curved Front

Recent work (Rice, 1985a) has presented the calculations of the first order variation in an elastic displacement field associated with arbitrary incremental planar advance of the location of the front of a half-plane crack in a loaded elastic full space. That work also indicated the relation of such calculations to a three-dimensional weight function theory for crack analysis and derived an expression for the distribution of the tensile mode stress intensity factor along a slightly curved crack front, to first order accuracy in the deviation of the crack front location from a reference straight line. Here we extend the results on stress intensity factors to the shear modes, solving to similar first order accuracy for the in-plane [Mode 2) and antiplane (Mode 3) shear stress intensity factors along a slightly curved crack front. Implications of results for the configurational stability of a straight crack front are discussed. It is also shown that the concept of line tension, while qualitatively useful in characteriz­ ing the crack extension force (energy release rate) distribution exerted on a tough heterogeneity along a fracture path as the crack front begins to curve around it, does not agree with the exact first order effect that is derived here.