“Trident” Model of Plastic Zone at the End of a Mode I Crack Appearing on the Nonsmooth Interface of Materials

Abstract

The calculation of a small scale plastic zone within the framework of “trident” model for the plain strain conditions at the corner point of the interface of two dissimilar elasto-plastic materials from which the mode I crack goes out is done by the Wiener–Hopf method. This zone is modeled by two symmetric side lines of tangential displacement jump and by the line of normal displacement jump on the crack elongation. The analytic expressions for definition of the zone dimensions and crack opening are obtained. The dependences of zone parameters on the interface spread angle and elastic material characteristics are analyzed on the basis of numerical calculations.