Investigations on the effect of shape of traction separation law on the results of cohesive zone model

Abstract

The present study deals with the simulation of stable crack growth within a centre cracked plate made up of type 304 stainless steel material. Numerical crack propagation analyses have been performed considering elastic-plastic material behaviour under pure mode-I loading using 2D cohesive zone modelling (CZM) with different traction separation laws (TSL). The study reports that the cohesive energy does not remain same for different TSL.There is a difference of 20-40% in cohesive energy for different laws if employed to the same material