State of stress in the crack tip region

• Consider a plate with through thickness crack and made of non

hardening material.
• In this case, the material within the plastic zone is able to flow freely
and contract in the thickness direction. But the adjacent elastic
material can not contract to the same extent. This phenomenon is
called plastic constraint and it leads to tensile stresses in the
thickness direction.
• At the side surfaces of the plate ,there is no stresses in the thickness
direction and hence side experiences plane stress.
• Towards the inner side, the degree of stress triaxiality increases and
reaches plane strain state.
• Surface regions experiences large displacements for the same far
field stress.
• Thus load shedding occurs from surface regions to the interior.
• If the plastic zone size is of the order of thickness, then plane stress
dominates.
Three dimensional nature of crack tip zone
around a crack tip in a finite thickness plate
• Plane stress dominates in thin plates where the transverse stress is zero in the thickness
direction.
• Under plane stress ,slip occurs at planes at 45 0 to the plate surface producing large strains
in the thickness direction.
• Under plane strain conditions, slip occurs on planes perpendicular to the plate surface.
Through thickness plastic zone size
•
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Plane of maximum shear stress

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Influence of state of stress on Fracture Behaviour
• Fracture appearance under monotonic loading
Crack extension begins macroscopically flat
and then shear lips are formed
at side surfaces.
As crack extends the shear
lips widens to entire fracture
surface fully slanted either in
single shear or double shear.
An exact model for flat to slant
transition is not available.
• Under plane strain conditions a hinge type deformation is followed
• Under plane stress slant fracture occurs by shear after hinge type
initiation.
THANK YOU

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