Three-dimensional elastic crack tip interactions with transformation strains and dislocations

Three-dimensional elastic interactions between a half-plane crack and sources of internal stress such as transformation strains and dislocations are analyzed. These interactions include the stress intensity factors induced along the crack front by the source and the overall energy change and stress field induced in the source region owing to the presence of the crack. The analysis is based on the author's recent extension of “weight function” methods of threedimensional crack analysis[1] and principal results of that extension are summarized at the outset here.