On the direction of development of a thin fracture process zone at the tip of an interfacial crack between dissimilar media.

The Wiener-Hopf method is used to study, under the conditions of plane strain, the direction of development of a thin fracture process zone at the tip of an interfacial crack in a piecewise homogeneous isotropic elastoplastic body. The zone is modeled by a straight line of tangential displacement discontinuity that emerges from the crack tip at an angle to the interface. The dependences of the zone length and the angle on the load and other parameters of the problem are investigated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]