A line plastic-zone model for steady mode III crack growth in an elastic-plastic material (Q1146566)

The problem of the steady-state growth of a crack in the anti-plane shear mode, in a body of non-hardening elastic-plastic material is analyzed. The analysis is based on the small scale yielding hypothesis and neglects the inertial effects assuming the rate of crack growth to be sufficiently low. A simplified model, for which generalization to Mode I propagation seems possible, is introduced. The model replaces the two-dimensional active plastic zone by a discrete ``line plastic zone'' extending from the tip out of the plane of the crack, on which a suitable yield condition is satisfied. The problem is formulated in terms of an integral equation together with an auxiliary condition. This equation is then solved by using Wiener-Hopf technique. The quantities of interest viz plastic strain distribution, the plastic-zone size and energy transfer during crack growth are calculated. It is shown that about 36\% of the energy flowing into the crack-tip region is dissipated, about 64\% is trapped in the wake as residual elastic energy. It is shown that the model leads to simple and accurate results on certain global features of the complex process of steady elastic-plastic crack growth. The introduction of the model is justified as it may be generalized to the study of more important Mode I and/or dynamic elastic plastic growth problems.