Stresses from arbitrary loads on a circular crack

An inclusive theory is developed for stresses and displacements due to arbitrarily distributed normal and tangential loads acting on a circular crack in an infinite body. The representation chosen for the boundary conditions leads to solutions expressed as series of Bessel-function integrals of a class quite susceptible to further analysis and to rapid evaluation on modern computers. The load coefficients which appear in all the solution series bear intelligible interpretation, and stress intensity factors are related to them by simple formulas. The inclusiveness and tractability of the solutions qualify this theory to be a useful part of analyses for cracks in finite bodies in which the effective crack loads can assume many patterns.