Family of crack-tip fields characterized by a triaxiality parameter-I. Structure of fields

Central to the J-based fracture mechanics approach is the existence of a HRR near-tip field which dominates the actual field over size scales comparable to those over which the micro-separation processes are active. There is now general agreement that the applicability of the J-approach is limited to so-called high-constraint crack geometries. We review the J-annulus concept and then develop the idea of a J-Q annulus. Within the J-Q annulus, the full range of high- and low-triaxiality fields are shown to be members of a family of solutions parameterized by Q when distances are measured in terms of J σ₀, where σ₀ is the yield stress. The stress distribution and the maximum stress depend on Q alone while J sets the size scale over which large stresses and strains develop. Full-field solutions show that the Q-family of fields exists near the crack tip of different crack geometries at large-scale yielding. The Q-family provides a framework for quantifying the evolution of constraint as plastic flow progresses from small-scale yielding to fully yielded conditions, and the limiting (steady-state) constraint when it exist. The Q value of a crack geometry can be used to rank its constraint, thus giving a precise meaning to the term crack-tip constraints, a term which is widely used in the fracture literature but has heretofore been unquantified. A two-parameter fracture mechanics approach for tensile mode crack tip states in which the fracture toughness and the resistance curve depend on Q, i. J_C(Q) and J_R(Δa, Q), is proposed.