Orthotropic materials weakened by a doubly periodic array of cracks under far-field antiplane shear are investigated, where the fundamental cell contains four cracks of unequal size. By applying the mapping technique, the elliptical function theory and the theory of analytical function boundary value problems, a closed form solution of the whole-field stress is obtained. The exact formulae for the stress intensity factor at the crack tip and the effective antiplane shear modulus of the cracked orthotropic material are derived. A comparison with the finite element method shows the efficiency and accuracy of the present method. Several illustrative examples are provided, and an interesting phenomenon is observed, that is, the stress intensity factor and the dimensionless effective modulus are independent of the material property for a doubly periodic cracked isotropic material, but depend strongly on the material property for the doubly periodic cracked orthotropic material. Such a phenomenon for antiplane problems is similar to that for in-plane problems. The present solution can provide benchmark results for other numerical and approximate methods.
