Analyzing the interaction between collinear interfacial cracks by an efficient boundary element-free method

A new traction boundary integral equation is presented for analyzing the interaction effect of any number of collinear interface cracks in a two-dimensional bimaterial. The dislocation densities on every crack surface are expressed in the products of the characteristic terms and the weight functions, and the unknown weight functions are approximated using the moving least-squares technique based on the constructed orthogonal basis functions. An efficient numerical integral method is employed to evaluate the Cauchy principal integrals that appear in the meshless method. The boundary element-free method is established, and a series of numerical results is presented. The interaction between the collinear interfacial cracks is analyzed.