The interaction of a system of weakened zones at the interface of elastic media in a tensile stress field

The interaction of a system of crack-like defects with distributed cohesive forces over the whole surface of the edges, located at the interface of two elastic half-planes and which open under the action of forces at infinity, is considered. A dislocation approach is used to describe the model of each defect: the discontinuity in the asymmetric shifts is specified in the form of a basis function with free parameters that satisfies a number of physical constraints. The free parameters of the model are determined when finding an analytical solution of the problem. The key questions are: what is the minimum load at which just one of these weakened zones is converted into the nucleus of a crack or when one of the connecting bridges separating these zones is fractured and, also, under what conditions can the interaction of the defects be neglected ? The model is extended with a relation which enables an explicit opening - bonding force dependence to be obtained.