Crack tip plastic zone under Mode I, Mode II and mixed mode (I plus II) conditions

The shape and size of the plastic zone around the crack tip are analyzed under pure mode I, pure mode II and mixed mode (I+II) loading for small scale yielding and for both plane stress and plane strain conditions. A new analytical formulation is presented to determine the radius of the plastic zone in a non-dimensional form. In particular, the effect of T-stress on the plastic zone around the crack tip is studied. The results of this investigation indicate that the stress field with a T-stress always yields a larger plastic zone than the field without a T-stress. It is found that under predominantly mode I loading, the effect of a negative T-stress on the size of the plastic zone is more dramatic than a positive T-stress. However, when mode II portion of loading is dominating the effect of both positive and negative T-stresses on the size of the plastic zone is almost equal. For validating the analytical results, several finite element analyses were performed. It is shown that the results obtained by the proposed analytical formulation are in very good agreements with those obtained from the finite element analyses.