On the tangential stress anomaly in the displacement discontinuity method

It is shown that the anomaly associated with the incorrect evaluation of tangential stresses in the displacement discontinuity (DD) method, commonly used to solve crack problems, is related to the order of singularity of the fundamental solutions of linear elasticity. It is established here that a minimum of linear variation of the shear DD distribution is needed to obtain the correct tangential stress jump across a crack. Alternatively, a correction term (‘patch’) that improves tangential stresses is derived. It is also shown that need for higher functionality is a fundamental requirement rather than a convenient artifice for obtaining better accuracy.