Numerical analysis of fast fracture and crack arrest in a sheet of elastic perfectly-plastic material

The dynamic fields for acceleration, deceleration and arrest of a crack tip have been investigated numerically. We consider cracks which start to extend rapidly under brittle conditions. The crack-tips then enter regions of elasto-plastic constitutive behavior and they are subsequently arrested. Results have been obtained for a symmetrically expanding central crack and for an edge crack, both in thin sheets. The elasto-plastic behavior has been described by J₂ flow theory, with the von Mises yield criterion and a bilinear relation between effective stress and effective strain. Numerical results are presented for stress and strain components at a short distance ahead of the propagating and arresting crack tips.