Аннотация:One of the mechanisms of destruction of a solid is the formation and growth of "micro" and "macro"
cracks. This task is especially acute for space objects. A microcrack in the body of the spacecraft practically does not
affect its mechanical strength, but it can lead to depressurization of the body, which can lead to the loss of life
support for the crew. Cracks can have different causes of their occurrence, but the mechanism of their growth in
modern fracture mechanics is associated with the chosen criterion. For example, in the force criterion, crack growth
begins when the stress intensity factors also reach a certain threshold critical value characteristic of a given material.
This paper presents the results of calculating stress intensity factors for spatial branching cracks. The calculations
were carried out on the basis of the original author's program, which makes it possible to determine the stress and
displacement fields in a three-dimensional elastic body weakened by a system of arbitrarily oriented cracks. The
program is based on the method of discontinuous displacements, implemented for three-dimensional problems of
fracture mechanics in an elastic medium, implemented in C ++ codes. The main purpose of the work is to
demonstrate the possibility of determining the stress intensity factors for a spatial branching crack and their
dependence on the geometric parameters of the problem.