Plastic Deformation at the Tip of a Tensile Crack in a Non-linear Kinematic Hardening Material

The plastic deformation at the tip of a tensile crack in a non-linear kinematic hardening material under small-scale yielding conditions is investigated, with a view to quantifying the functional dependence of crack-tip plastic blunting size on material's strain hardening parameters. It is shown by dimensional analysis that, for materials being characterised by the Armstrong-Frederick non-linear kinematic hardening rule, the crack-tip blunting parameter depends parametrically on only two non-dimensional parameters; the functional dependence is determined using a parametric finite element analysis.