Modeling of a curvilinear planar crack with a curvature-dependent surface tension

IAn approach to modeling fracture incorporating interfacial mechanics is applied to the example of a curvilinear plane strain crack. The classical Neumann boundary condition is augmented with curvature-dependent surface tension. It is shown that the considered model eliminates the integrable crack-tip stress and strain singularities of order 1/2 present in the classical linear fracture mechanics solutions, and also leads to the sharp crack opening that is consistent with empirical observations. Unlike for the case of a straight crack, for a general curvilinear crack some components of the stresses and the derivatives of the displacements may still possess weaker singularities of a logarithmic type. Generalizations of the present study that lead to complete removal of all crack-tip singularities, including logarithmic, are the subject of a future paper.
Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures