Interaction between rectangular cracks embedded in infinite medium

The interactions between two co-planar or parallel rectangular cracks under normal and tangential loads were analyzed and the corresponding stress intensity factors (SIFs) were calculated to evaluate the local toughness and stability of an infinite medium including rectangular cracks. A numerical scheme for 3D cracked media was formulated by boundary element technique based on a kind of non-hyper-singular traction boundary integral equations. The variation of SIF with the aspect ratio of a rectangular crack and the influence of the distance between two cracks on SIF were investigated by the presented numerical method. Results showed different interaction effects for co-planar and parallel cracks. When the cracks become closer, the SIF for co-planar cracks becomes larger, while the dominant SIFs for parallel cracks become smaller. The influence of interaction tends to vanish when the distance is big enough.