Constraint effects on crack-tip fields in elastic-perfectly plastic materials (Q5926706)

The authors consider a stationary crack in the constitutive framework of Prandtl-Reuss elasto-perfect plastic materials, with von Mises yield condition, under plane strain state. Motivated by numerical calculations performed by different authors, the material is assumed to be incompressible, and all stress components are non-singular functions depending on the polar angle, but not on the distance from crack tip. The asymptotic solutions of the governing differential equations and plastic sectors depend on the polar angle. The authors require the continuity of all components, and formulate appropriate boundary conditions on the crack plane for problems under I, II and mixed-mode loadings. Two constraint parameters to quantify the constraint level are put into evidence. The angular variations of stress components found in the paper are comapared with finite element results and with other solutions existing in the literature.