The Evolution of Stress Intensity Factors and the Propagation of Cracks in Elastic Media

When a crack Γ _s propagates in an elastic medium the stress intensity factors evolve with the tip x(s) of Γ _s . In this paper we derive formulae which describe the evolution of these stress intensity factors for a homogeneous isotropic elastic medium under plane strain conditions. Denoting by ψ=ψ(x,s) the stress potential (ψ is biharmonic and has zero traction along the crack Γ _s ) and by κ(s) the curvature of the crack at the tip x(s), we prove that the stress intensity factors A ₁(s), A ₂(s), as functions of s, satisfy: where , are stress intensity factors of the tangential derivative of in the polar coordinate system at x(s) with θ=0 in the direction of the crack at x(s). The case of antiplane shearing is also briefly considered; in this case ψ is harmonic.