to be announced
- John Raymond Willis (University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, United Kingdom)
Abstract
A solution for a general 3D dynamic perturbation of a crack which, when
unperturbed, propagates at uniform speed in the plane 
, so that,
at time t, it occupies the surface
was developed in recent years by Willis and Movchan. When coupled with
a fracture criterion, it permits the study of the dynamic stability of
the propagating crack. This has so far provided explicit confirmation
of the existence of a "crack front wave", which is an in-plane
disturbance of the crack front, which propagates along it without
attenuation or dispersion. Also, more recently, it has been employed in
its 2D specialisation to study the stability of the crack to out-of-plane
disturbance. An outline of the general perturbation solution will be
presented and both of these applications will be described.
