Fracture Modes of an Annular Cracks in a Transversely Isotropic Solid

The existence and extension of the cracks in structural materials is one of the issues to be considered to prevent the devastating effects of cracks. Cracks can be subjected to different types of fracture modes that considering these modes help us to predict the behavior of cracks. This paper investigates the effects of the fracture modes (opening, shearing and tearing) on the annular crack in an infinite transversely isotropic solid. In each mode, by substituting the boundary conditions into governing equations of the medium, the problem reduced to triple integral equations. With the aid of Hankel and Abel integral transforms, the triple integral equations reduced to two Fredholms integral equations which are amenable to numerical solutions. The inner and outer stress intensity factors of the annular crack are obtained for different ratios of inner-outer radius of the annular crack. Some limiting cases such as the penny-shaped crack and external crack are considered. From the results, it can be concluded that the stress intensity factors (SIFs) are independent of material properties; additionally, loads play major role in the variation of SIFs which may lead to change in the direction of crack extension.