Calculation of the plastic zone at a crack tip with the use of the “trident” model

Abstract

For plane-strain conditions, the initial plastic zone near the tip of a normal-rupture crack in a uniform isotropic elastoplastic body is usually modeled by two straight slip lines originating from the tip [7]. However, the results of independent experiments [3, 4] have shown that a prefracture zone is present along with lateral plastic zones directly in front of the crack. The prefracture zone is considerably shorter than the lateral zones, and the level of the stresses in it is extremely high. The process of initial plastic deformation near the end of the crack is ...