Perturbation method to analyze the elastodynamic field near a kinked crack

A perturbation procedure is presented which expresses the elastodynamic fields near a kinked crack in terms of a power series of κ, where κπ is the kinking angle. Mode-III and Mixed Mode I-II crack kinking of a semi-infinite crack have been considered. Each order in the approximation requires the field for a crack which propagates in its own plane, but where the crack faces are subjected to crack-face tractions which are related to the actual crackkinking geometry. For crack kinking under stress-wave loading it was shown in an earlier paper that the lowest order approximation gives very good agreement with exact analytical and numerical results over a substantial range of kinking angles.