A Hypersingular Boundary Integral Equation for Antiplane Crack Problems for a Class of Inhomogeneous Anisotropic Elastic Materials

An antiplane multiple crack problem is considered for a class of inhomogeneous anisotropic elastic materials. The problem is reduced to a boundary integral equation involving hypersingular integrals. The boundary integral equation may be solved numerically using standard procedures. Some crack problems for a particular inhomogeneous material is considered in detail and the stress intensity factors are obtained in order to asses the effect of the anisotropy and inhomogeneity on the stress field near the crack ripe