Self-oscillating regime of crack propagation induced by a local phase transition at its tip.

We report an analytical study of propagation of a straight crack with a stress-induced local phase transition at the tip. We obtain its contribution to the dynamic fracture energy in explicit form and demonstrate that it nonmonotonically depends upon the crack tip velocity. We show that its descending part gives rise to the instability of the steady propagation regime. We obtain the dynamic phase diagram and indicate those domains where self-oscillating regimes of the crack motion take place.