Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

www.elsevier.com/locate/engfracmech

The boundary nite element method for predicting

directions of cracks emerging from notches
at bimaterial junctions
a,*
A. M
uller , J. Wenck a, S. Goswami a, J. Lindemann a,
J. Hohe b, W. Becker c
a
Institut f ur Mechanik und RegelungstechnikMechatronik, Universitat Siegen, 57076 Siegen, Germany
b
Fraunhofer-Institut fur Werkstomechanik (IWM), 79108 Freiburg, Germany
c
Technische Universitat Darmstadt, Fachbereich Mechanik, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
Received 8 October 2003; received in revised form 5 March 2004; accepted 13 April 2004
Available online 21 July 2004

Abstract
The analysis of a bimaterial medium with various notch opening angles has been carried out using boundary nite
element method (BFEM) under arbitrary loading conditions. Introduced as novel method for stress concentration
problems at geometrical discontinuities, cracks, bimaterial notches etc., the BFEM has been proved as numerically
highly ecient. This has become more and more important because wedge type construction creates stress concen-
trations which may lead to crack initiation in many practical situations where multi-layered composite material is used,
e.g. within aerospace, ship or automobile structures. So, the computational prediction of potential directions for crack
initiation is essential for the knowledge of weak regions. All the analysis results are based on the hypothesis of Erdogan
and Sih and have been veried by the well established nite element method. Results for potential crack initiation angles
of both homogeneous and bimaterial media are presented with multiple examples of dierent wedge angles and dierent
loading combinations.
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fracture; Crack initiation direction; Boundary nite element method; Stress concentration; Mixed mode loading

1. Introduction

The advent of light-weight and high-strength materials opened the door for many recent innovative
applications. A highly improved manufacturing process has greatly contributed to the extensive appli-
cation of multi-layered materials in primary components of light-weight structures. Large multi-compo-
nent structures, e.g. within aircraft, automobile or satellite body, require a number of joints and

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-271-740-2225; fax: +49-271-740-2461.
E-mail address: mueller.axel@vdi.de (A. M
uller).

0013-7944/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfracmech.2004.04.004
374 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

Nomenclature

b load factor
Ce exterior boundary of the continuum
Ci ctitious interior boundary of a boundary nite element
Dh distance between Ce and Ci
e strains
g local tangential coordinate of the boundary nite element
#v angle of the notch opening
#
complement of the angle #
#I , #II joining angles, referred to material I and II
j scale factor
k eigenvalues; order of the singularity
K diagonal matrix of the eigenvalues k
r, rmn (asymptotic) stress eld
rumax largest circumferential stress
u0 direction of crack initiation
U
matrices of the eigenvectors
n local radial coordinate of the boundary nite element
B strain displacement operator
Cjla coecients of the static stiness matrix Kjl
D elasticity matrix
e ratio of the Youngs moduli
fmn angular functions
F applied load
H Hamilton matrix
j, l indices denoting the interfaces e and i
J Jacobian Matrix
K
generalized stress intensity factor
Kjb elastic boundary stiness matrices at Cj
Kjl static stiness matrix
Nj element shape functions
P nodal forces
Pj arbitrary points at the boundaries Cj
R external loads
rj radial distances between Pj and S
S centre of singularity or similarity centre
uj nodal displacements
xj , y j cartesian coordinates of Pj

connections of dierent shape and material. Sharp corners and the vicinity of joints are the weakest re-
gions of the structure due to high stress concentrations and the possibility of crack nucleation, if the
strength of the joint or the interface is not sucient. From the point of view of structural integrity,
computational tools are essential to a reliable prediction of potential damage initiation in the form of
cracks, the direction of crack initiation and circumferential and shear stress prediction in the vicinity of
the wedge or crack.
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 375

Considering the importance of the crack and wedge conguration and the frequency of occurrence, the
research carried out within this area is considerable. Since a complete review of literature on this subject is
not the aim of the present contribution, only some essential works are cited here. Kelly et al. [6] studied the
stress elds based on dierent geometries under tensile loading. Analytical and numerical investigations of
the singular behaviour of the stresses of bimaterial wedges have been carried out by several authors; e.g.
Vasilopoulos [14], Yang [17] or M uller et al. [10]. The diculties of getting a converged solution in nite
element computation with singularities have been studied by Tong and Pian [13]. The eect of thermal
stress elds near an interface of a specic application in electronics packaging is examined by Shepherd
et al. [12]. The mismatch of the coecients of thermal expansion creates stresses at the interface and ini-
tiates edge debonding.
For the general case of non-separable singular elds, a mixed mode situation has to be considered: A
crack may grow not only at the interface, but also in a specic angle u0 to the interface. Knowing that there
are several criteria which may be used to determine the direction of crack growth, Grenestedt and Hall-
strom described them, see [4], the work presented here is based on the hypothesis of Erdogan and Sih [2] on
crack extension in plates under plane loading. According to this criterion, it can be assumed that a crack
will grow in radial direction of largest circumferential tensile stress perpendicular to the direction of rumax
starting at its tip in radial direction.

2. Notion of the BFEM and its advantages

Conceived as a boundary discretization method, the rather novel boundary nite element method avoids
a fundamental solution, but in contrast to the boundary element method, the element formulation of the
BFEM refers to the nite element technology. For that reason, the method presented here can be conceived
as a nite element based boundary discretization method. As one of the rst published works on that,
Dasgupta [1] presented his formulation for unbounded homogeneous continua. More recent works likewise
originating from soil mechanics have been published by Wolf [15] and Wolf and Song [16]. Leaving aside
these works on time-dependent problems, Lindemann and Becker considered the time-independent stress
concentrations within laminated composites [7], such as holes [8] or cracks and the free edge eect [9]. All
these stress concentration problems were reliably analyzed by BFEM but with signicantly less discreti-
zation eort compared to the nite element method (FEM).
The present investigation of the directions of potential crack nucleation is based on a plane model as
shown in Fig. 1. Basically, the BFEM assumes that a stiness matrix Keb at the boundary Ce of the con-
sidered continuum describes the force displacement relation at discrete degrees of freedom along the

Fig. 1. Discretization needed for boundary nite element analysis.

376 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

Fig. 2. Boundary nite element cell.

boundary. This is seen to be scalable with respect to one point of the plane, the similarity centre S, which
coincides here with the centre of singularity. Therefore, within the continuum geometrically similar con-
tours Ci have to be considered and their stiness matrices Kib can be concluded without any discretization
of the continuum itself.
In the following, a compact introduction to the boundary nite element method is presented, a com-
prehensive description of this method is given by its inventors Wolf [15] and Wolf and Song [16]:
A boundary nite element cell is depicted in Fig. 2 and can be described as follows: Arbitrary points Pi at
the interior boundary Ci can be established by concentric back scaling the coordinates xe and ye of a node Pe
from the exterior boundary referred to the similarity centre S:

  

xe re  ri xi
1 : 1
ye ri yi
The variable re in Eq. (1) describes the radial distance between the exterior boundary and the similarity
centre S, with the distance Dh between the inner and the outer boundary of the boundary nite element cell
shown in Fig. 2. Thus, the distance ri between the interior boundary and the similarity centre S is dened.
Calculating the stiness matrix Keb , one layer of isoparametric plate continuum elements of innitesimal
dimension Dh in radial direction is used, thus discretizing the boundary. As local radial coordinate of this
element n is introduced, as well as a tangential coordinate g with values varying between 1; 1. The shape
functions NjT in n-direction can be formulated with the common isoparametric shape functions N T and the
notation for the inner and the exterior boundary j i, e as
NjT 121 nj nN T : 2
This represents a decomposition of the inner and the outer boundary. Using the Jacobian matrix J for the
transition to the global coordinate system and partitioning the common strain displacement operator
B Bi ; Be  referring to the interfaces j, the operator for the relationship between strains and displacements
becomes:
nj 1 1 nj n
Bjj Bj   B2 3
j 2 1 j2 1 n j
with
re  ri
j : 4
ri
In this equation, the matrices Brj consist of coecients jij which follow from the inverse of the Jacobian
matrix. With the elasticity matrix D of the material in hand the nite element formulation is given by
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 377
Z
Kjl BTj DBl dV with j i; e; l i; e: 5
V

The submatrices for the static element stiness follow, evaluating the integral of the equation above in the
n-direction, if the operators for strains and displacements, Eq. (3), are implemented. Omitting terms of
higher order in j, the static stiness matrix allows the following representation:
1
Kjl Cjl0 Cjl1 jCjl2 : 6
j
Herein, the coecient matrices Cjla are given by
Cjl0 nj nl E0 ;
nj nl 0 nl 1 nj 1T
Cjl1 E E E ; 7
2 2 2
n j n j n l
Cjl2 E2 ;
4 12
where the matrices Ek follow from:
Z 1
0 T
E B1 DB1 det J dg;
1
Z 1
T
E1 B2 DB1 det J dg;
1
Z 1
8
1T 1T 2
E B DB det J dg;
1
Z 1
T
E2 B2 DB2 det J dg:
1

In the case of scalability referred to the similarity centre, the elastic boundary stiness matrix at a ctitious
interior boundary Kib can be expressed by the boundary stiness matrix at the outer boundary:
Kib 1 jKeb . Thus, the relation between nodal forces P and nodal displacements u of the discretized
element layer can be expressed in the decomposed form
 
 
Pe Kee Kei ue
9
Pi Kie Kii ui
and the relation between the loads R and the displacements u at the discrete nodes of the nite element
discretization
Rj Kjb uj with j i; e 10
leads to the following formulation of the equilibrium between the external loads R and the nodal loads
P Pe Re ; Pi Ri :

 
b  
Kee Kei ue Ke 0 ue
b : 11
Kie Kii ui 0 Ki ui
After eliminating the displacements ue from this system of equations, a relation between the stiness at the
interior and that at the exterior bound is found, because the coecient matrix must vanish since this
equation must be valid for any displacement ui :
1
0 Kii  Kie Keb Kee Kei Kib : 12
378 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

Under consideration of Eqs. (6) and (7) a MatrixRiccati equation for the unknown elastic stiness matrix
Keb K b of the outer boundary is found performing the limit j ! 0, i.e. re ! ri :
1 1 1 T 1 T
0 K b E0 K b  E1 E 0 K b  K b E 0 E1  E2 E 1 E0 E 1 : 13
The solution for the MatrixRiccati equation (13) can be found solving the equivalent eigenvalue problem:
H U
U
K; 14
where the Hamilton matrix H consists of the submatrices Ek and K is the diagonal matrix of the eigenvalues
1
k and U
are the matrices of the eigenvectors. The boundary stiness matrix then is K b U
12 U
11 . Thus, the
eld quantities inside the continuum can be determined according to
k 1 r
u U
11 r
i U
11 ue with r
: 15
r0
With the strain displacement operator, Eq. (3), the strains e follow from:
 
T u
e ex ; ey ; cxy  Bu Bi Be  i : 16
ue
Subsequently the stresses can be obtained as
r rx ; ry ; sxy T De DBu: 17

3. Model description and verication

In this piece of work, the BFEM has been applied to homogeneous and bimaterial crack and wedge
situations under arbitrary mixed mode loading. Computational results from BFEM have been thoroughly
compared with the nite element method (FEM), see [11], to check their reliability and then a number of
case studies have been made to generate new results for future reference.

3.1. Structural modelling

The description of the model is given in detail in the following section. Fig. 3 shows the geometry and the
presumed arbitrary mixed mode loading of a medium with a notch or a crack, respectively, under con-
sideration. This plane structure has been discretized only by 48 boundary nite elements. Using the nite
element method, the same structure has to be discretized with approximately 80,000 elements and 150,000
nodal degrees of freedom to reach approximately the same accuracy. This will denitely underline the
reduction of computational eort that can be achieved by using the boundary nite element method. Thus,
one single BFEM analysis of the examples presented here needs only 201 of the time which is necessary for the
FEM calculation using identical machines.
A square, respectively, rectangular model has been constructed which consists of a notch like opening.
The lower and upper edge has been kept straight and of equal length. The bottom part of the structure has
been made xed no translations are allowed while the top edge nodes, as marked in Fig. 3, are tied to
each other with a single master point P
by multi-point constraints. The load F applied at the master point
P
of the structure is marked as Fx and Fy . The loading amount is completely arbitrary as shown in Fig. 3
as Fx and Fy which can invoke mixed mode situations of various amounts of mode mixity.
Fig. 1 shows the discretization of the structure using the boundary nite element method. The wedge
angle is dened as #v . So from the geometry, #I is the angle subtended by the top subdomain at the
similarity centre S and similarly the bottom subdomain makes an angle #II with the similarity centre S.
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 379

Fig. 3. Considered geometry and presumed arbitrary mixed mode loading.

The centre of the global coordinate system has been placed at the similarity centre at the tip of the crack,
respectively, the wedge. This gure also depicts the mesh division at the boundary by the boundary nite
element method. To get the stresses at any point inside the structure, the boundary has to be scaled back to
that point. For the bimaterial problem, the top and bottom part consist of material I and material II and
they are connected ideally at the interface.
Under these conditions where homogeneous or bimaterial structural components are attached together
to create a new structural entity, the potential direction of fracture initiation is of particular interest. For
a real life situation, an arbitrary loading invokes a mixed mode case with non-separable singular elds.
The stress elds show a local behaviour of the following kind:

rmn r; u K
krk1 fmn u: 18

Herein K
denotes a generalized stress intensity factor and the order of singularity k generally is of complex
value, the quantities fmn are functions of the angular variable u. The order of the singularity can be cal-
culated solving an eigenvalue problem and depends on the geometry, e.g. the notch opening angle #v , and
the material combination, e.g. the ratio of the Youngs moduli e EI =EII , for detailed analyses see [11]. As
complex values of the order of singularity k lead to oscillating singularities which seem to be relevant
mainly for extremely short distances from the singularity centre, the investigations made are conned to the
real parts.
For non-separable mixed mode elds a crack may grow not only at the interface but also at a certain
angle u0 with the interface. In the present situation of arbitrary mixed mode loading, a specic crack
propagation direction is dicult to give directly, but a probable characteristic crack propagation direction
under arbitrary mixed mode case can be postulated with the knowledge of the local elds and under the
assumption of the Erdogan/Sih hypothesis using computational means nite element method or
boundary nite element method without considering any kind of material discontinuities.

3.2. Denition of the applied mixed mode loading

The load generated by vertical and horizontal external forces in global x- and y-direction is applied here
at the lower and the upper edge of the model. These two edges are assumed to remain straight and of equal
length, so that dened elds representing the pure loading modes I and II in that sense and the mixed modes
situations between them can be simulated. Obviously the denition of the modes here is dierent from that
of common crack extension modes. But as the intention of the presented studies is to dene a certain
loading situation, the applied load is suitable for the denition of the charge concerning tension and shear.
380 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

Thus, the label loading mode marks the transition from crack extension to loading modes which typify a
dened ratio of tensile and shear loading.
Thus, the following load factor b characterizes the mixed mode situations and can be dened as ratio of
the forces:
Fx
b : 19
Fx Fy
From this expression of the dened loading mode b, it is clear that pure opening mode I is represented by
b 0:0 and pure sliding mode II is represented by b 1:0. Any value of b in between 0.0 and 1.0 represents
a mixed mode case of the applied loading.

3.3. Validation of the BFEM results with FEM

A comparison of the normalized stresses ru over the circumferential angle u from the boundary nite
element method with those of the nite element method can be found in Fig. 4 for a homogeneous material
under various load factors b. The wedge angle considered for this example is 60. Fig. 4 represents stress
results along a circle around the similarity centre S for various b values between pure opening mode I and
pure sliding mode II. The eect of the radius considered is of importance as very small radii r will lead to
the dominance of mode I so that the direction of crack initiation is closer to the interface whereas bigger
radii r create stronger eects of mode II which leads to larger angles for crack initiation far away from the
interface. Thus, a radius r in the order of about 1 lm was chosen representing a typical dimension of the
microstructure of the material under consideration, e.g. porosity, inclusions.
The correspondence between nite element and boundary nite element analysis procedure is found to
be excellent. It has to be pointed out here that according to the hypothesis of Erdogan and Sih [2], the
maximum tangential, respectively, circumferential stress ru gives the probable crack propagation direction.
Therefore, in Fig. 4, the portion of the curve which shows the maximal positive ru is of interest. It is also
to be noted that apart from b 0, for all the other values of b, the maximum positive ru occurs within the
second quadrant in the (ru , u)-axis system, indicating that the possible crack propagation angle lies below
the interface, i.e. the negative u-direction, if the direction of shear stress is assumed as depicted in Fig. 3.
Fig. 5 shows the variation of ru over u for a bimaterial structure for various values of b. The bimaterial
conguration has been dened in such a fashion that the ratio of Youngs moduli for top and bottom
material is e 0:4 EI =EII in other way, material I, the top material, is softer in comparison to material II,

Fig. 4. Comparison of the normalized circumferential stresses calculated from FEM and BFEM for homogeneous material with 60
notch opening.
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 381

Fig. 5. Comparison of normalized circumferential stresses calculated from FEM and BFEM for a bimaterial, e 0:4, with symmetric
60 notch opening.

Fig. 6. Comparison of the normalized circumferential stresses calculated from FEM and BFEM for a bimaterial, e 2:5, with
symmetric 60 notch opening.

the bottom material, with Poissons ratio remaining the same for both the materials. The wedge opening
angle is taken as 60. In this case, too, close agreement of the stress results has been found between the nite
element and boundary nite element methods. This gure also depicts that the maximum positive cir-
cumferential stress, i.e. probable crack initiation angle u0 , appears to grow below the interface in the
material II domain. In Fig. 6, the present study has been extended for a bimaterial medium with stier
material I at the top and softer material II at the bottom, i.e. e 2:5. Results from both the methods show
good agreement. The possible failure direction, i.e. crack initiation direction, turns out to be again inside
the material II domain, i.e. negative u.

4. Prediction of crack initiation directions

All the previous studies show the close agreement of results from boundary nite element method and
nite element method. With this background work where the eciency and reliability of boundary nite
382 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

element method has been proved beyond doubt, therefore, all the results presented hereafter come solely
from the novel boundary nite element method.
As example for application, a joint of a glass ceramic adhesive and a metallic substrate is depicted in Fig.
7. The cracks deviate under a characteristic angle to the interface. Following the intention of the present
study, the dependence of this angle u0 on the loading situation and the combination of the involved
materials is investigated.
The variation of possible crack propagation direction angles u0 under various load factors b for a
number of wedge opening angles is depicted in Fig. 8. The material considered for this study is homoge-
neous and linear-elastic. One interesting conclusion is to be drawn immediately from this gure, namely
that under pure mode I loading, i.e. b 0, for all the wedge opening angles considered here, failure initiates
in the form of a crack at the interface u0 0 and under pure mode II loading, i.e. b 1:0, the failure/crack
initiation angle tends to converge around that of pure crack situation case under mode II loading,
u0 70:5 which is well known, see [2,3,5]. Physically the explanation may be the following: Under pure
mode II loading, the maximum tensile circumferential stress ru is encountered in the lower part, material II,
for the pure crack as well as other wedge opening angles at hand, correspondingly the shear stress sru is
negligible at the point of maximum ru .
With respect to the load factor b, Fig. 9 shows the variation of u0 , the probable crack initiation
direction, for a bimaterial medium with e 0:4. The wedge opening angle varies from 0 to 120. No
specic trend emerges from this gure, though in general, it can be mentioned that at the initial stage
starting from pure mode I loading upto a certain b value where the contribution from mode I is signicant,
failure in the form of crack initiates inside material I with positive u0 value. With the increment of the

Fig. 7. Junction with cracks deviating under a characteristic angle from the interface due to the applied load.

Fig. 8. Variation of crack initiation directions for dierent notch opening angles under arbitrary mixed mode loading in homogeneous
material.
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 383

Fig. 9. Variation of crack initiation directions for dierent symmetric notch opening angles under arbitrary mixed mode loading in a
bimaterial with e 0:4.

dened loading mode b, the sliding mode II dominates, the failure initiation angle u0 gradually shifts to
material II. The wedge opening angle shows a signicant eect on the direction for crack nucleation. The
larger the notch opening angle, the less the eect of b on crack initiation direction. Especially the wedge
angle of 120 seems to be relatively insensitive to the load factor in case of failure initiation angle.
Fig. 10 shows the eect of unsymmetrical wedge opening angles on the crack initiation direction under
various load factors b for the bimaterial case with e 0:4. The unsymmetrical notches are characterized by
[#
I , #
II ] with #
180  # so that the complementary angle is used. The curves for dierent wedge opening
angles follow in general the pattern as shown in Fig. 9. Apart from the two curves 0; 0 and 20; 10,
characterized by small unsymmetrical opening angles, which show a similar trend with failure initiation in
material I, the softer material, for all the other cases, crack initiation takes place below the interface inside
material II, the stier material. It can also be concluded here that as the unsymmetrical wedge opening
increases, the crack initiation directions become relatively insensitive to the load factor values.
Some studies on the eect of symmetric wedge angles on crack initiation are shown in Fig. 11 for a
bimaterial medium with e 2:5. The eect of material properties can be seen comparing Figs. 8 and 11,
respectively. For a homogeneous material and for dierent wedge angles, the crack initiation direction
seems to be either at the interface for pure mode I or inside material II below the interface. For the

Fig. 10. Variation of crack initiation directions for dierent unsymmetrical notch opening angles, #
I ; #
II  under arbitrary mixed mode
loading in a bimaterial with e 0:4.
384 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386

Fig. 11. Variation of crack initiation directions for dierent symmetric notch opening angles under arbitrary mixed mode loading
in a bimaterial with e 2:5.

Fig. 12. Variation of crack initiation directions for dierent unsymmetric notch opening angles, #
I ; #
II  under arbitrary mixed mode
loading in a bimaterial with e 2:5.

bimaterial case, starting from pure mode I and for all the other b values, the failure direction is consistently
inside material II below the interface. The tendency of crack initiation angle variation with respect to b
shows some similarity for both homogeneous, see Fig. 8, and bimaterial case, Fig. 11.
With respect to the loading factor b, Fig. 12 shows the variation of the crack initiation angles u0 for an
unsymmetric bimaterial medium. Here, the material properties have been kept as stier material at the top
and softer material at the bottom, e 2:5. The wedge opening is unsymmetric for all the cases shown in this
gure. The study is similar to that shown in Fig. 10, only the materials for this case have been interchanged.
This is equivalent to the change of the direction of shear stress dened in Fig. 3.
The results indicate that for all the cases studied here, Fig. 12, a crack initiates in material II which is the
softer material from the beginning and throughout from pure mode I to pure mode II and also mixed mode
cases, whereas in Fig. 10, a crack initiates initially at the top material u0 is positive and as the
contribution of mode II becomes stronger, the failure initiation direction changes to the lower material
u0 becomes negative. In general, it can also be concluded from the gure that as the unsymmetric wedge
opening increases, the crack initiation direction becomes larger as b increases from pure mode I to pure
mode II but the noticeable fact is that the wider the wedge opening, the smaller the crack initiation direction
from the interface with higher b values.
 A. Muller et al. / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 72 (2005) 373386 385

5. Concluding remarks

Plane 2-D structures made of a homogeneous or a bimaterial medium with various notch type openings
have been analyzed using the novel boundary nite element method (BFEM). Results from BFEM have
been thoroughly conrmed with the well established nite element method and excellent correlation has
been achieved. Thereafter, various parametric studies have been carried out concerning various structural
geometries and loading arrangements. In conclusion, the results have been explained with sucient detail.
Based on the studies carried out here, some concluding remarks are given below:
In the study of the notch situation in the homogeneous medium, the eect of the load factor b on the
probable crack initiation angle u0 has been investigated. This loading mode b characterizes the situation of
the applied mode mixity: b 0 for pure opening mode I and b 1 for pure sliding mode II. Under crack
situation, fracture initiates at the ligament for pure mode I and at an angle )70.5 for pure mode II. As the
wedge angle increases, the fracture initiation angle decreases compared to the same situation for crack. As
the wedge angle increases beyond 100, the eect of mode I becomes predominant and for a relatively large
value of b, the failure initiation angle stays almost near the ligament with small u0 value.
A similar study for a bimaterial medium with e 0:4 has been carried out and the results have been given
in the form of u0 vs. b curves for various wedge opening angles. For a crack situation, fracture starts inside
material I, the softer material, and with small increments of the arbitrary loading mode b the propagation
angle shifts inside material II. As the wedge angle becomes wider, the eect of mode I gradually gets stronger
as the failure initiation angles become smaller. Under pure mode II, the probable crack direction gets re-
duced drastically as the wedge angle increases. In the case of wedge angles more than 100 the eect of mode I
is very strong and the failure initiation direction is very close to the ligament regardless of b value, i.e. in
other way, regardless of the degree of mode mixity. This trend is similar to that of a homogeneous material.
It can be seen that for an unsymmetric notch opening angle for a bimaterial medium with e 0:4, the trend
of fracture initiation is very similar to that of the two other cases mentioned above. For this unsymmetric
case, with increasing upper opening angles #
I , the eect of the load factor b decreases. Thus, the fracture
initiation direction varies close to around )20 under any amount of mode mixity.
The case of a bimaterial medium with e 2:5 with symmetric notch opening angles shows a somewhat
similar behaviour to that of a homogeneous material for a symmetric notch opening. But in contrast to a
homogeneous material, where for the crack situation fracture initiates at the ligament, in the bimaterial
case, the fracture initiates inside material II, the softer material, under arbitrary mixed mode loading for all
the cases studied here. A thorough study of the behaviour for a bimaterial unsymmetric notch situation
with e 2:5 has been made in this work. Again, the fracture initiation behaviour has been found to be
similar to that of a symmetric notch opening case. For all the cases studied here, for pure mode I, pure
mode II and in between any mixed mode situations under the system of loading considered, the failure zone
have been identied as material II, softer material.

Acknowledgement

The nancial assistance given to the author S. Goswami by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung,
Germany, is gratefully acknowledged.

References

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