EFFECT OF THE ELASTIC-T-TERM ON THE CRACK-TIP PARAMETERS AND THE STABILITY OF CRACK GROWTH PATH

The so-called elastic T-term is the third term of Williams expansion for the linear elastic crack tip field, which is constant along the crack plane over a large distance in front of or behind the crack tip and has been introduced as an another independent crack tip parameter. It was shown that the T-stress has no direct effect on the crack tip parameters, such as the J-integral,in linear deviation. However, the T-stress influences significantly the shape and size of the plastic zone under the small-scale y...