Elastic Fields Around Multiple Stiff Prestressed Arcs Located on a Circle

Abstract The plane strain problem of an isotropic elastic matrix subjected to uniform far-field load and containing multiple stiff prestressed arcs located on the same circle is considered. The boundary conditions for the arcs are described by those of either Gurtin–Murdoch or Steigmann–Ogden theories in which the arcs are endowed with their own elastic energies. The material parameters for each arc can in general be different. The problem is reduced to the system of real variables hypersingular boundary integral equations in terms of two scalar unknowns expressed via the components of the stress tensors of the arcs. The unknowns are approximated by the series of trigonometric functions that are multiplied by the square root weight functions to allow for automatic incorporation of the tip conditions. The coefficients in series are found from the system of linear algebraic equations that are solved using the collocation method. The expressions for the stress intensity factors are derived and numerical examples are presented to illustrate the influence of governing dimensionless parameters.