Singularities in auxetic elastic bimaterials

In this paper we study the effects of negative Poisson’s ratios on elastic problems containing singularities. Materials with a negative Poisson’s ratio are termed auxetic. We present a brief review of such materials. The elasticity problem of a bimateral wedge is presented, then two particular cases of this problem are investigated: the free-edge problem and the interface crack problem. We study the effect on the stress singularity due to one portion of the bimaterial becoming auxetic. We find that the auxetic material has a significant effect on the singularity order, even causing the singularity to vanish for certain values of the elastic constants. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.