Study into the Interaction of Cracks in an Elastic Half-Space under a Shock Load by Means of Boundary Integral Equations

The effect of a shock load on the interaction of circular cracks in an elastic half-space is studied. In the space of Fourier time transforms, the problem is reduced to a system of two-dimensional boundary integral equations in the form of the Helmholtz potential with unknown densities characterizing the discontinuities in the displacements of the opposite crack faces. Discrete analogs of those equations are constructed. As an example, two cracks are considered whose faces are under the action of shock tensile loads varying in time as the Heaviside function. The time dependences of the dynamic stress intensity factors are obtained. Their dependence on the relative position of the cracks in the half-space is analyzed.