Generalized Griffith criterion for dynamic fracture and the stability of crack motion at high velocities.

We use Eshelby's energy momentum tensor of dynamic elasticity to compute the forces acting on a moving crack front in a three-dimensional elastic solid [Philos. Mag. 42, 1401 (1951)]. The crack front is allowed to be any curve in three dimensions, but its curvature is assumed small enough so that near the front the dynamics is locally governed by two-dimensional physics. In this case the component of the elastic force on the crack front that is tangent to the front vanishes. However, both the other components, parallel and perpendicular to the direction of motion, do not vanish. We propose that the dynamics of cracks that are allowed to deviate from straight line motion is governed by a vector equation that reflects a balance of elastic forces with dissipative forces at the crack tip, and a phenomenological model for those dissipative forces is advanced. Under certain assumptions for the parameters that characterize the model for the dissipative forces, we find a second order dynamic instability for the crack trajectory. This is signaled by the existence of a critical velocity V(c) such that for velocities V<V(c) the motion is governed by K(II)=0, while for V>V(c) it is governed by K(II) not equal to 0. This result provides a qualitative explanation for some experimental results associated with dynamic fracture instabilities in thin brittle plates. When deviations from straight line motion are suppressed, the usual equation of straight line crack motion based on a Griffiths-like criterion is recovered.