Stroh formalism in analysis of skew-symmetric and symmetric weight functions for interfacial cracks

The focus of the paper is on the analysis of skew-symmetric weight functions for interfacial cracks in two-dimensional anisotropic solids. It is shown that the Stroh formalism proves to be an efficient tool for this challenging task. Conventionally, the weight functions, both symmetric and skew-symmetric, can be identified as non-trivial singular solutions of a homogeneous boundary-value problem for a solid with a crack. For a semi-infinite crack, the problem can be reduced to solving a matrix Wiener-Hopf functional equation. Instead, the Stroh matrix representation of displacements and tractions, combined with a Riemann-Hilbert formulation, is used to obtain an algebraic eigenvalue problem, which is solved in a closed form. The proposed general method is applied to the case of a quasi-static semi-infinite crack propagating between two dissimilar orthotropic media: explicit expressions for the weight functions are evaluated and then used in the computation of the complex stress intensity factor corresponding to a general distribution of forces acting on the crack faces. © The Author(s) 2012.