| Abstract: | This work is concerned with the application of the volume energy density criterion for predicting the crack trajectories as influenced by mechanical and thermal disturbance in an anisotropic material. Two-dimensional linear thermoelasticity is employed in conjunction with the well-known complex potentials such that a linear relationship is obtained for the boundary conditions across the crack or line of discontinuity. Boundary collocation is then used to determine the unknown coefficients from which the contours of the volume energy density in the cracked plate can be obtained. The crack path is assumed to coincide with the loci where dilatation would dominate. This corresponds to the locations of relative minimum energy density which can be found by visual inspection. An equal and opposite mechanical stress and thermal gradient are applied on the cracked plate. The former and latter enhance symmetric and asymmetric crack growth, respectively. They would complete depending on the magnitude of the mechanical and thermal load. Numerical results are presented for three (3) different cases of a plate whose principal axes of material symmetry are tilted to the crack plane. The influence of anisotropy on crack path is found to be secondary. |
