Influence of microcracks on thermal fracture of macrocrack

This work is concerned with the influence of microcracks on the fracture stability of a macrocrack in a uniform field of heat flux. Evaluated are the macrocrack tip stress intensity factors for plane problems of thermoelasticity. Several distributions of microcracks with varying location and orientation are examined; they could either enhance or suppress the onset of macrocrack growth. The microcracks are one order of magnitude shorter than the macrocrack such that the individual effects of the microcracks can be obtained by superposition.