Non-uniformly loaded stack of moving elastic antiplane shear cracks

A stack of moving, non-uniformly loaded, parallel, antiplane shear strip cracks within an isotropic elastic solid is analyzed, by exploiting an extended dislocation layer technique using moving screw dislocations. Detailed closed-form expressions are obtained and discussed for the stress components at general points of the deformation that is created. Their variations with the polar angle near a crack tip are investigated and a neat representation of the corresponding novel, comprehensive, stress intensity factor is deduced. Illustrative numerical results are graphically presented. The occurrence of the phenomena of crack branching and crack shielding are observed for particular values of the geometrical parameters and speed of the cracks. Comparisons with some corresponding special cases are provided as validation of these more general results.