Modelling of Fatigue Crack Closure via the Concept of Plastic Inclusions

Abstract

The phenomenon of closure is one of the most important phenomena that have been linked to the deeper understanding of fatigue cracks. Various methods have been employed to model the plastic zone around the crack tip which appears to give rise to the closure phenomena. In this thesis, our goal is to model the plastic region near the crack tip by using a suitable adaptation of an Eshelby inclusion. To do this, the first task is to translate Eshelby’s solution in terms of Muskhelishvili’s complex potential functions for 2D elasticity and then solve these equations for a suitable shape of plastic inclusion. In this thesis, we have concentrated only on the case where the inclusion is a disc in front of the crack just touching the crack tip.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Plymouth
Supervisor	Colin Christopher (Other Supervisor)