The effect of T-stress on the brittle fracture under mixed mode loading

Abstract

Over the recent years, an increasing attention has been devoted to study the effect of higher order terms of Williams’ series expansion in the fracture mechanics problems. It has been shown that the stress and strain fields around the crack tip are influenced considerably by the constant term, T-stress, and considering the effect of this term leads to better results. Several fracture criteria have been developed to describe brittle failure in linear elastic bodies, when subjected to mixed mode (I/II) loading. In this paper, the conventional fracture criteria, namely maximum tangential stress criterion, minimum strain energy density criterion, Maximum dilatational strain energy criterion, and maximum triaxial stress criterion are modified to take into account the effect of T-stress. A comparison between the effect of T-stress on the different fracture criteria has been made. The results from various criteria are then compared with the earlier experimental results for PMMA subjected to mixed mode loading.