The brittle fracture of bodies with partially healed surface cracks

Abstract

The express methodology for assessing the strength of a body with a partially healed crack is used for modeling the renovation of bodies with surface defects. We adopted the hypothesis that the elastic properties of the body with a partially healed crack are preserved. However, the specific surface energy of separation of surfaces is different from that in a solid body. Thus, we came to the problem of mechanics of crack in a semi-infinite body homogeneous in terms of elastic properties and heterogeneous in terms of crack resistance. In analytical and numerical form, quantitative estimates of healing efficiency are established depending on three parameters: degree of filling of cracks, crack resistance of the newly formed interface, mutual location of surface cracks. In particular, it is shown that body restoration near the surface is better than healing near the defect vertices.