Local crack plasticity and its influences on the global elastic stress field

This paper presents the background and development of a novel ‘plastic inclusion’ approach for dealing with the local plasticity which occurs at the tip of a growing fatigue crack. Localised plasticity arises from crack growth mechanisms and essentially blunts the crack, creates a reversed cyclic plastic zone, and induces shear along the crack flanks, along with the possible generation of wake contact stresses which act on the applied elastic...