Bifurcation and stability of structures with interacting propagating cracks

A general method to calculate the tangential stiffness matrix of a structure with a system of interacting propagating cracks is presented. With the help of this matrix, the conditions of bifurcation, stability of state and stability of post-bifurcation path are formulated and the need to distinguish between stability of state and stability path is emphasized. The formulation is applied to symmetric bodies with interacting cracks and to a halfspace with parallel equidistant cooling cracks or shrinkage cracks. As examples, specimens with two interacting crack tips are solved numerically. It is found that in all the specimens that exhibit a softening load-displacement diagram and have a constant fracture toughness, the response path corresponding to symmetric propagation of both cracks is unstable and the propagation tends to localize into a single crack tip. This is also true for hardening response if the fracture toughness increases as described by an R-curve. For hardening response and constant fracture toughness, on the other hand, the response path with both cracks propagating symmetrically is stable up to a certain critical crack length, after which snapback occurs. A system of parallel cooling cracks in a halfspace is found to exhibit a bifurcation similar to that in plastic column buckling.