Plastic yielding at crack tips

Abstract

Small-scale plastic yielding at crack tips is studied by means of nonlocal elasticity. Plastic lines along the crack line of a mode III crack modeled by an array of dislocations. It is shown that plastic yield begins after a definite value of load as a consequence of nonlocality. The length of plastic zone and the dislocation distribution are determined as functions of the applied load. The results are in good agreement with experimental observations.