Bethany Epstein Qualifying Exam

Abstract: We derived the axial stress and displacement fields for a steady subsonic tensile crack propagating through an infinite homogeneous isotropic plate, a known result. We regularized the system using a dissipative perturbation and obtained the result via the complex-analytic Wiener-Hopf method. Our result is consistent both with previous theory and with experiment. This method can be retooled to furnish a continuum theory for tensile supersonic cracks which has heretofore been elusive.