Crack tip stresses under creep conditions

Linear elastic fracture mechanics predicts a characteristic distribution of tensile stress ahead of a crack tip in a body subjected to a remote tensile stress normal to the crack faces. The relaxation of this stress distribution, arising from steady state creep behaviour, is here examined. An approximate method, due to Hoff, is used to predict the relaxed stress distribution. The approximate method is reasonable for cases where the elastic strains may be ignored in comparison with the steady state creep strains. The results show that the relaxed steady state stress distribution depends on the steady state creep characteristics of the material.