A numerical study of the transient behavior of an interfacial crack in a bimaterial plate

In this paper we developed a numerical method to determine the transient stress intensity factor and crack opening displacement of an interfacial stationary crack in a bimaterial plate subjected to time dependent anti-plane shear stress on the surfaces of the plate. A bimaterial plate of finite length of dissimilar elastic, isotropic laminae with Griffith type of crack at the interface is analyzed. For the numerical method the finite element equations are derived in the frequency domain from a variational principle. The stress intensity factors in the frequency domain are evaluated from the displacements, which are obtained upon solving the finite element equations. The transient stress intensity factor is then obtained by numerical Fourier inversion technique using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) routine. Quarter point elements and transition elements are used to model the crack tip singularity.