PROPAGATION OF A CRACK DUE TO SHEAR-WAVES IN A NONHOMOGENEOUS MEDIUM OF MONOCLINIC TYPE

The paper discusses the propagation of a crack due to shear waves in a nonhomogeneous medium having monoclinic symmetry. The stress intensity factor at the crack tip for a concentrated force of a constant intensity is calculated. The method developed by Matczynski6 has been used to solve the problem. It has been shown that the stress intensity factor decreases as the length of the crack increases. It is also observed that due to the effect of anisotropy the stress intensity factor increases more as compared to the homogeneous case for a particular value of the length of the crack. The increase is relatively more when the medium is anisotropic and inhomogeneous simultaneously.