Influence of material anisotropy on the interaction between cracks under tension and shear

The fracture of anisotropic bodies with multiple macrocraks is analyzed by means of modeling interaction between cracks and interaction of crack with the free boundary. The influence of material anisotropy on cracks behavior is investigated for orthotropic material, material with cubic symmetry and isotropic material. Article deals with numerical computations of stress intensity factors of internal and edge cracks in the rectangular plate under uniaxial tension and pure shear loadings. The displacement extrapolation method is used for the computation of stress intensity factors for anisotropic materials. The effect of material anisotropy on stress intensity factors for different crack configurations (one, two and three cracks of different lengths) under various loading conditions (tension or shear) is investigated and discussed.