Interaction of microcracks with a macrocrack yielded in a narrow strip

Plastic zone growth of collinear cracks has had a longstanding interest in ductile fracture. This work further considers yield zone growth in an isotropic, homogeneous elastic–perfectly plastic infinite plate containing a macrocrack with several neighboring microcracks. Normal loading is considered at distances far away from the cracks. The strip yield is adopted where the plastic zone is assumed to be confined to two narrow strips extending from the ends of a finite length crack while the microcracks are assumed to be elastic. The plastic zone length and crack opening displacement are found from asymptotic solution and compared with finite element solution.