Singular Elasto-Static Field Near a Fault Kink

We study singular elastic solutions at an angular corner left by a crack that has kinked. We have in mind a geophysical context where the faults on either side of the kink are under compression and are ready to slip, or have already slipped, under the control of Coulomb friction. We find separable static singular solutions that are matched across the sides of the corner by applying appropriate boundary conditions. In our more general solution we assume that one of the sides of the corner is about to slide, i.e. it is just contained by friction, and the other may be less pressured. Our solutions display power law behaviour with real exponents that depend continuously on the angle of the corner, the coefficient of static friction and the difference of shear load on both sides of the corner. When friction is the same on both sides of the kink, the solutions split into a symmetric and an antisymmetric solution. The antisymmetric solution corresponds to the simple shear case; while the symmetric solution appears when the kink is loaded by uniaxial stress along the bisector of the kink. The antisymmetric solution is ruled out under this model with contact since the faults cannot sustain tension. When one side of the corner is less pressured one can also distinguish modes with contact overall from others that must open up on one side. These solutions provide an insight into the stress distributions near fault kinks, they can also be used as tools for improving the numerical calculation of kinks under static or dynamic loads.