Three dimensional analyses of cracks and defects

Abstract

There are two major categories of mathematical methods for solving boundary value problems with mixed boundary conditions to which crack and anticrack problems belong. The first category encompasses various integral transform methods. The second category is the Green's function approach. Recently Fabrikant, based on Green's function approach and some of his new results in potential theory, solved crack and contact problems in a completely new approach. The approach overcomes the main impediment of direct Green's function approach and can solve nonaxisymrnetric problems in a way similar to that used for axisymmetric problems for 3D crack and contact problems.