Interaction integral procedures for 3-D curved cracks including surface tractions

This study examines a two-state interaction integral for the direct computation of mixed-mode stress intensity factors along curved cracks under remote mechanical loads and applied crack-face tractions. We investigate the accuracy of stress intensity factors computed along planar, curved cracks in homogeneous materials using a simplified interaction integral that omits terms to reflect specifically the effects of local crack-front curvature. We examine the significance of the crack-face traction term in the interaction integral, and demonstrate the benefit of a simple, exact numerical integration procedure to evaluate the integral for one class of three-dimensional elements. The work also discusses two approaches to compute auxiliary, interaction integral quantities along cracks discretized by linear and curved elements. Comparisons of numerical results with analytical solutions for stress intensity factors verify the accuracy of the proposed interaction integral procedures. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.