Estimation of tensile load-bearing capacity of ductile metallic materials weakened by a V-notch: The equivalent material concept

Ductile commercial steel was equated from the viewpoint of strain energy density with a virtual brittle material of the same elastic modulus by using a novel concept, called the equivalent material concept (EMC). By determining the ultimate tensile strength of the virtual material and also, by assuming that the values of the plane-strain fracture toughness for real and virtual materials are equal, the tensile load-bearing capacity of several V-notched samples of steel reported in literature was theoretically estimated by using the mean stress (MS) criterion as a well-known brittle fracture theory. It was found that the theoretical results of the MS-EMC criterion for the imaginary brittle specimens are in a very good consistency with the experimental results reported for real steel samples. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.