Propagation of a Dugdale crack at the edge of a half plane

This work deals with the propagation of a Dugdale crack at the edge of a half plane. The corresponding singular integral equation is solved semi-analytically. The expressions of the stress intensity factor and of the crack gap are deduced. A propagation criterion deduced from the revisited Griffith theory (Ferdjani and Marigo in Eur J Mech A Solids 53:1–9, 2015) is applied. The length of the process zone is calculated and compared with the literature results. The presented results show the evolution of the applied load with the crack length for different values of the ratio of the critical length of the Dugdale model to the initial crack length. The shape of the crack gap is also presented. Finally, a comparison between the Griffith and Dugdale models is performed.