ANALYSIS OF CRACK PROPAGATION IN A COMPRESSIVE STRESS FIELD. FRACTURE OF CONCRETE AND ROCK: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF WALES, COLLEGE OF CARDIFF, SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, SEPTEMBER 20-22, 1989

The present paper is devoted to the study of the propagation of fractures located in a body subjected to a compressive field of stresses. Homogeneous, elastic and isotropic material, plane strain conditions and an initial state of stresses in the body are assumed. A hybrid boundary element technique has been developed: the boundaries of the body are represented by fictitious stress elements, whereas the fractures are better modeled by a set of special displacement discontinuity elements, which allow for the development of frictional tangential stresses on the crack surfaces when the crack closes due to compressive normal stresses.(A) For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 829348.