On the indentation of an inhomogeneous plastic solid

Summary The problem considered here is that of the indentation of a semi infinite, inhomogeneous rigid-plastic solid by a smooth, flat ended punch under conditions of plane strain. It is assumed that the yield stress of the solid k(x, y) has the form k ⁰+k(x, y) where k ⁰ is a constant and is small. A perturbation method of solution developed by Spencer 1] is used, and general results are obtained for arbitrary values of k(x, y). Some particular cases are then considered.